Sorcerer

by Menon, David

  ‘Well, would you like to lead the way, DI Stockton?’

  When Jeff and Rebecca got into the interview room they found a very contrite Jack White who was waiting to give them the final piece of his side of the story.

  ‘So Mary Griffin was your sister?’ said Jeff once she’d got over the initial shock of what White told him.

  ‘Yes’ said Jack. He’d never talked about any of this before and he was finding it harder than he thought it would be. It was like having a bunch of razor blades in his heart. ‘Mary and I grew up in Wythenshawe. We came from a family where my father worked in some dead end job and my mother did what she could with the money he gave her. I haven’t spoken to any of my other siblings, and I’ve got three brothers and another sister, for decades. I don’t know anything about them or even where they are. They could all be dead as far as I know’.

  ‘But you didn’t think to tell us this before?’

  ‘I blocked it out to be honest’.

  ‘You can’t just block out that somebody is your sister, Mr. White’.

  ‘You can in this case’ Jack countered. ‘You see, she did something to me that was so despicable that the only way I could get over it was to pretend she didn’t exist’.

  ‘So what did she do that hurt you so much?’

  ‘When we were growing up Mary and I were close’ Jack revealed. ‘We both shared the same sense of wanting to get out into the world. We knew that life had to be better than the example we’d been set. There was a different kind of life out there that was worth chasing and we both had this intense desire to go out and get it. We wanted to succeed. We both did well at school, not that our parents cared a bugger about that. All of us kids were treated as cash crops. Only stay at school as long as you’ve got to and then get out and work to bring some money into the house. Our happiness wasn’t important to them. They just wanted us to fit into their view of the world and not have the audacity to think for ourselves. Sadly it still happens in many families today where the parents aren’t particularly educated and for some reason don’t want their children to be either. But both Mary and I knew that we were going to go a different way’.

  ‘And how did you get there?’

  ‘Well let me start right at the beginning. I met a boy called Ross. We were both eighteen and he lived a couple of streets away. We both knew as soon as we set eyes on each other, you know? We were involved in a relationship for six months until his parents found out and then the shit hit the fan. They were furious and went round and told my parents who were equally irate. There was a terrible row, shouting and screaming all over the place. My Dad used it as an excuse to use me as a punch bag. He thought he could beat me into being what he called a proper man. Ross gave in to the pressure and said he wouldn’t see me anymore. But I wouldn’t give in and my last view of my father was when he was throwing a bag with my clothes in it down the path at me after he’d thrown me out. He said that he wasn’t going to have a filthy shirt lifter for a son. Mary had already left home and turned her back on the family and she was the only one I could go to. She helped me find a flat and I thought we’d bonded in a way that could never be broken. I’d got a job and I was earning decent money so it wasn’t difficult financially and I was defiant. I said I’d never see the rest of my family again and I’ve stuck to it. Ross got married the year after. He’s a grandfather now and still living in the same street he grew up in. I don’t know if he ever thinks of me but I think a lot about him even after all these years, especially during my low moments. But you see, I thought that my sister Mary was okay about me being gay. I had no reason to think otherwise because she’d supported me after our Dad threw me out. But years later when we were in the middle of a drink fuelled row she told me that she considered homosexuality to be a perversion and that her views basically chimed with those of our father. I was devastated. I felt very badly let down. I loved my sister and I thought she loved me for who I was but instead she broke my heart’.

  ‘Was she married at this stage?’

  ‘Yes’ said Jack. ‘Harry Lake was a wonderful man. He was an astute businessman but he was also kind, generous, and supportive. He promoted me at the firm Valley Engineering and set me on the road to where I am today. But he wasn’t enough for Mary. They had Edward but she never displayed much of a maternal instinct. Various people looked after him, including me. Then she met George Griffin who she saw as exciting and less serious than Harry. Harry found out about Mary’s affair and it really shook him. He just wasn’t the same man anymore. Then, as you know, he committed suicide. He hanged himself in the bedroom of their house. Mary married Griffin within a month and cut herself and Ed off from all of Harry’s family. I ended up thinking that Harry Lake had married beneath him’.

  ‘And was that the start of your estrangement from her?’

  ‘Well you already know how she and Griffin blackmailed me’ said Jack. ‘And that’s what I mean by a despicable act. I mean, don’t you think it was pretty despicable to accuse me of sexually abusing my own nephew Ed?’

  ‘Yes, I do’ said Jeff who was softening towards Jack White even though he still had difficult questions to answer. ‘But then you swindled your nephew out of his inheritance when you bought his shares from your sister’.

  Jack knew he had to swallow that one. He’d been living with it for years. ‘Yes’.

  ‘After he’d confided in you that his step-father had been sexually abusing him’.

  ‘After my own sister had threatened to say that it was me who’d done that to Edward and not her precious bloody husband!’

  ‘I can see why that would upset you, Mr. White’.

  ‘Can you? Can you really? My sister was evil, detective. She was capable of anything and when she met George Griffin it was like Satan had found his bride. She, a mother, knew what was happening to her own son and knew what was happening to those boys at Pembroke because she was part of it. And it’s pretty hard to think of my sister being complicit in such horrendous acts, detective’.

  ‘But you knew she was involved all along, Mr. White’.

  ‘Yes, I knew but now you know precisely why I kept my mouth shut and why I helped Anne all these years because she needed to get away from all the evil around her. I had to help her financially. I had to do something to ease the guilt that was ripping my insides out. I am sorry, more than you’ll ever know, for not going to the police and I am sorry I never made it up to Ed’.

  ‘Does he know he’s your nephew?’

  ‘Yes’ said Jack. ‘But I expect he’s blocked that little fact out of his mind. I would’ve done if I’d been him’.

  ‘You failed to report a multitude of crimes, Mr. White’.

  ‘You know I can’t deny that’.

  ‘So why are you here today?’

  ‘To tell you about Mary being my sister so that it may add some context not only to your considerations but also to what I’m about to tell you. About six months ago Mary contacted me, and bear in mind I’d not had any contact with her since she moved to Spain twenty years ago, and asked me if I would lend her and George some money’.

  ‘How much?’

  ‘A hundred thousand pounds’.

  ‘Wow’ said Jeff. ‘Did she say why they needed it?’

  ‘She said that their business had run into difficulty and that they were running short of cash flow’.

  ‘And what did you tell her?’

  ‘I told her I’d rather see them in the gutter than help them. She started to beg and when that didn’t work she ranted down the phone at me with expletive after expletive. Then she hung up and I never heard anything again’.

  ‘So what do you think they did about their financial problems?’

  ‘I don’t know’ said Jack. ‘But I wouldn’t put anything past them’.

  ‘Is that why you’ve moved into the Lowry hotel? To hide from George?’

  ‘Yes’ said Jack. ‘And I’ll be staying there until you apprehend him’.

  A call then came
through from the Antwerp police that saved the morning for Jeff and made the day seem worthwhile after all. Wright picked it up and buzzed it through to Jeff’s office but when he picked it up he’d been put on hold. The music that was played to bridge the gap was so indecipherable and hideous that Jeff wished they’d just used silence. If this was Belgian music, he thought, they could bloody well keep it. Then when he heard the click and a person’s voice he suddenly went into the French he’d been mentally practicing whilst he waited.

  "... oui, bonjour, je suis l'inspecteur de police divisionnaire Jeff Barton de la police du Grand Manchester au Royaume-Uni. Pourrais-parler avec quelqu'un qui est chargé d'enquêtes sur les crimes graves s'il vous plaît?"

  Jeff then heard a masculine chuckle followed by English spoken in an accent that didn’t sound very French.

  ‘Hello? I’m Inspector Dirk Van Miert of the Antwerp police department. You I believe are detective superintendent Jeff Barton?’

  ‘You’re not French speaking?’

  ‘No, we speak Flemish in this part of the country which is a version of Dutch. And when we speak to people from outside we prefer to speak any language other than French’.

  ‘I’m so sorry Inspector’ said Jeff. ‘Please forgive my cultural ignorance’.

  Van Miert laughed. ‘Oh it’s not a problem. Not many people outside Belgium are aware of our little ways. And please call me Dirk’.

  ‘Okay, Dirk’ said Jeff who thought he had a very guttural type of voice. If he sang he’d probably sound like Rod Stewart. ‘And I’m Jeff. So you weren’t laughing at my attempt at speaking French?’

  ‘Not at all’ Dirk assured. ‘I wouldn’t speak French any better than that, believe me. And I’m pleasantly surprised to receive a call from Manchester. My daughter is at university there reading European history and English. She lives in a flat in a place called Fallowfield?’

  ‘Yes, I know it well’.

  ‘My wife and I have been over there half a dozen times. We like the city very much’.

  ‘Does your daughter like it here?’

  ‘Oh yes, she enjoys her studies and she loves student life. She’s made many friends and she’s got to know all the bars and clubs and places to eat. She’s costing me a bloody fortune’.

  Jeff smiled. ‘And I’ll bet you don’t mind a bit’.

  ‘No, of course not. She’s a clever girl and I’m proud of her. But now I suppose we should get down to business. I’m glad you called, Jeff, because we do have some urgent matters to discuss relating to the Griffins’.

  ‘Tell me more?’

  ‘Right, well we’ve been investigating the activities of a local doctor by the name of Dr. Josef Smets who we’ve suspected for some time of working for a paedophile ring that’s been operating right across Europe but based here in Antwerp. Through him we came across the Griffins who are also part of the same ring that specifically covers the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, the Czech Republic, and the UK. Not to mention Belgium of course. For years now the Griffins and the rest of the ring have been making thousands and thousands from the sale and distribution of films showing extreme and quite disgusting child pornography. They’ve been getting away with it because they buried their operations behind several layers of legitimate businesses but the pattern has always been the same. In each of the countries they’ve used underprivileged kids from poor backgrounds who are in an institution of some kind. They find places where the staff can be leaned on in some way and the boys are always too scared to tell anyone’.

  Jeff felt sick. ‘Yes, this is all sounding horribly familiar. It’s what the Griffins did when they were still living in this country and managed a care home for boys’.

  ‘Well you could say that they exported their particular business model’.

  ‘Evil bastards’ said Jeff.

  ‘Yes my English is sufficiently good enough to agree with you there, Jeff. Now, recently, Dr. Smets has got himself into some difficulty with gambling debts. Amassed over the years it went up to a staggering amount that he was struggling to pay back and so he diversified. Or at least he was forced to because he was made an offer he couldn’t refuse’.

  ‘Either work for the gangs who control the casinos in Antwerp or end up at the bottom of the North Sea?’

  ‘That’s exactly it, yes’.

  ‘So is the paedophile ring an integral part of Antwerp’s criminal underworld?’

  ‘Oh yes’ Dirk confirmed. ‘And the city’s crime bosses told Dr. Smets that he had to issue false death certificates as part payment for his gambling debts. These were people who’d been bumped off because they’d fallen foul of the crime bosses in some way and Dr. Smets issued a death certificate to say they’d died of natural causes’.

  ‘Dirk, I suspect that the death of Mary Griffin isn’t as straightforward as it first seems’.

  ‘Yes and that is exactly our conclusion too. You see Jeff, the Griffins were lending money to Dr. Smets to help him get through his financial difficulties but at the same time their business was failing. They weren’t making the kind of sales anymore that they used to because most people of that kind of inclination can download what they need from the internet at a fraction of the cost of the films made by the Griffins and it’s also more convenient. But I’ve seen some of the Griffin films. They are pretty sick but they made enough out of them to finance a very lavish lifestyle in Spain over many years’.

  Jeff was bristling with anger. When he thought of poor old Ronnie Wiseman and all the other boys at Pembroke whose lives were destroyed and then he thought of the Griffins living it up in the sun with a pool and a sea view … it made him want to kill them himself. But then lightening struck and all of a sudden some things were starting to make sense.

  ‘So with everything else going badly for them the Griffins themselves were in financial trouble?’

  ‘Yes they were’.

  ‘Mary Griffin asked her brother to lend them some money. He refused’.

  ‘I don’t blame him if he knew what they’ve been up to’.

  ‘Yes he does and I don’t blame him either. Dirk, I’m beginning to get a picture of what might be happening here. Can you tell me what the status of your investigation into Dr. Josef Smets is right now?’

  ‘We’re almost ready to move on the entire paedophile ring’.

  ‘Well I’ll be happy to place me and my squad in any co-ordinated effort. But you do know that George Griffin has jumped bail and we believe he’s abducted his granddaughter?’

  ‘Yes, I do know that’ Dirk confirmed. ‘It’s rather a nuisance to be honest. It might hold things back’.

  ‘I can well appreciate that but we are doing all we can to find them. In the meantime I’d be grateful if you could email over to me all you have on the Griffins including a copy of Mary Griffin’s death certificate that I think we both now believe was a fake?’

  ‘Indeed, yes and I have a whole dossier on Dr. Smets and his relationship with the Griffins to email over to you’.

  ‘Excellent, thank you. Now Mary Griffin was due to be buried but the funeral didn’t take place because George had absconded. So that’s where I’m going to start. I’m going to get the coffin opened up and if my inkling is right then I don’t think it will be Mary Griffin we find in there’.

  SORCERER FIFTEEN

  Jeff asked Ollie Wright to join him and Rebecca in there morning progress meeting. He told them that he’d requested the coffin of Mary Griffin to be opened and he was waiting for the pathologist June Hawkins to report back once she’d seen the body if there was one.

  ‘We have to find Gabby Lake’ Jeff went on. ‘God only knows what Griffin is planning to do with her and I simply will not accept that we can’t pick up any leads on this. Somebody saw Griffin drive Gabby Lake away in his car. How’s the door to door going in the area?’

  ‘Poorly, sir’ said Wright. ‘Nobody has come forward with anything of any value to us. A couple of the houses in the street where Gabby Lake lives with her fiancé
Owen Cunningham are empty but I think it also has to be remembered that most people in that street are out at work during the day. The woman who gave us the description of Griffin’s car just happened to be walking her dog down the street at that time and she actually lives a ten minute walk from there. Gabby was only at home because she was about to go and visit her father in hospital’.

  ‘Where was Owen Cunningham at the time of Gabby’s disappearance?’

  ‘He was at the dentist, sir and then he went to his parents’ house in Salford. We have verified that’.

  ‘Okay but there’s got to be something somewhere that will move us forward on this. Rebecca, you’ve been going through the dossier sent to us by email from the Antwerp police?’

  ‘Yes, sir, and it makes for very interesting reading’ she replied. ‘The films made by the Griffins and all their associates on the continent have made so much cash that Griffin and the rest opened Swiss bank accounts several years ago. It’s estimated that they’ve stashed away thousands if not millions from their ill gotten gains’.

  ‘So how come they had bloody cash flow problems that were enough for Mary Griffin to ask her brother Jack White for money?’

  ‘Ah, well the Swiss authorities who are desperate to co-operate with EU moves to close down tax havens used by EU citizens, received a tipoff that the money in the accounts had been made from the sale of child pornography and they’ve frozen the accounts. Griffin and the rest can’t get anything out of them at the moment’.

  ‘And so added to that the money they were giving Dr. Smets to get him out of trouble with his gambling debts and I can see why they got into trouble themselves’.

  ‘But sir there’s something else you should know’ said Rebecca. ‘Someone else we know has been paid regular sums from those accounts’.

  Jeff held her breath. ‘Who?’

  ‘Ian Hayward, sir’

  ‘Christ!’ Jeff exclaimed. ‘That’s how he’s managed to get such a fuck off house’.

  ‘So what do we do with this particular revelation?’ asked Rebecca.