The Sweeney 03

by Ian Kennedy-Martin

  Maynon let a silence grow on to the tail of Regan’s outburst. At first Regan thought he was just assimilating his words. Then he realized the man was angry. ‘What’s the first job you ever did on the Squad?’ Maynon asked.

  Regan hesitated, put off his stroke by such an odd question. ‘I think I remember I busted a felon by the name of Parker.’

  ‘Why?’

  He didn’t know what answer Maynon was looking for.

  Maynon wasn’t looking for an answer. ‘You nicked a tea leaf because you were obeying orders. What in fuck’s changed, Jack?’

  Regan had an answer. ‘I have.’

  ‘You’d be surprised how little. The odd scar, a wound, a touch of the mental blocks. You’re the same loud bugger we ever knew. You’re at a dangerous age, Jack. You know, you’re getting on, for a Squad cop, thirty-six and a DI still.’

  ‘With a difference. I’m the best DI in the Squad. And the record to prove it...’

  ‘Everyone knows you’re a genius. I’m saying something else. You’re getting on, you’ve seen it all, and you think you’ve put it all together. Well I don’t think you have. I don’t think you’ve got all the subtle nuances together yet. Okay, the ACC has put you on a murder case that smells of the SB. I happen to know there are people in this building who think you shit gold bars. I think the ACC’s put you on this case because, for reasons you’ll have to right guess, he doesn’t want the Special Branch dominating it.’ Maynon stopped there, his pipe had gone out. He pulled out two more matches and struck them. ‘When are you going to bloody wake up?’

  Regan didn’t have an answer. He wouldn’t have given one anyway, because his mind was on the proposition, working it out. Of course Maynon was right. Haffasa, a VIP oil sheikh visiting London, would definitely be surveillanced by the Special Branch. So if they were watching him, how come he got topped?

  ‘Were the SB watching Haffasa?’

  Maynon shrugged through a cloud of pipe smoke.

  Regan was quiet a moment. Then he said it. ‘Why would they lie, sir?’

  Maynon was puffing in vain. The pipe went out again. He examined it – the tobacco had got too damp or too packed. He decided against the cleaning and refilling process and put it back in the ‘In Tray’. ‘I think there are two sets of answers in this case. The given ones and the real. Start at the Bahrain Embassy. Why did Haffasa come to this country? Who did he meet? Why did he go to the Wellington Clinic? Who did he see there? What are his politics, background? What part does he play in the international oil Mafia – for instance, he’s not a prominent name in opec? What’s his private life about – did he live any of it in London...?’

  ‘I know the questions to ask, sir.’ Regan stood up. The interview was over.

  But Maynon was doubtful. ‘Do you? On second thoughts I’m not sure I do. I don’t like the idea that an Arab dies, and the SB is deathly silent, and the ACC is suddenly giving you orders. I think you got a big one on your hands, Jack.’ Regan shrugged, turned and walked to the door. ‘Stay lucky,’ Maynon said gently. Regan walked out.

  He was followed. It didn’t worry him. He was followed from the moment he left the Yard, walked to Victoria Street and hailed a cab. It was two p.m. His lunch had been four scotch’s alone in the Tank waiting for a friendly face. There had been a lot of faces, none of them friendly.

  Maynon was right. At thirty-six he was ageing. A few years ago it would have worried him that he was being followed – now, nix to it. People who follow you are not usually a danger, otherwise they put that up front, like the don’t-get-well greetings Haffasa received from the M38. Besides which he was going nowhere private. The cab was heading for the Embassy of the State of Bahrain. The Bahrain lot, who with their other oil pals currently held Britain in hock, had not been able to offer an ambassador to lament with Regan the passing of the sheikh. They said they would provide a Security Vice-Consul, whatever the Hell that was, to answer or not answer the questions of the Scotland Yard detective.

  The address of the Embassy of the State of Bahrain is Two Upper Brook Street, which is of course not an oil derrick’s length from Claridge’s Hotel. The Embassy building is a restrained lump of Regency, and not too large inside. For coffee and games, and general fal-fa-lal the Araby shiekhs squat it out mostly down the road in Claridge’s, almost as if they already owned the hotel.

  The car that followed Regan was a Mercedes 280SE with two men in it. Regan took a couple of long looks at the car, through the smoked glass rear window of the cab, wrote down the registration number HJJ 5IK, but couldn’t see through the smoked glass any details of the guy driving it and his squire. The Mercedes was sitting well back in the traffic.

  As Regan stepped from the cab on to the pavement outside the Embassy, the tail had tastefully disappeared. But Regan knew they would be back.

  The Embassy rooms were austere. The reception room looked like a busy Harley Street doctor’s practice, with the same Country Life’s two years out of date. The room belonging to the Security Vice-Consul was up-market from this, on the same floor. It was a cool green room, with a fine Bokhara carpet disappearing under some nice antique chairs and a Louis Quinze gilt ormolu desk.

  The man behind the desk, the Security Vice-Consul, when he rose to step forward and greet Regan, turned out to be a very large man indeed. The contrast was particularly marked because his Arab major domo who took Regan from Reception to the Vice-Consul’s office would be about five foot three in shoes which he didn’t have because he was wearing sandals. ‘Zehadim,’ the Vice-Consul said, extending a huge fist.

  Regan extended his hand, expecting it to be crushed, but the man had a soft, brief handshake. He was quickly using the same hand to indicate for Regan to sit down.

  Zehadim was six foot six, the type of bloke whose ancestors used to stand stripped to the waist, arms akimbo, at the door of the great man’s harem, sword tucked inside support belts, with about a metre and a half of cutting edge honed to a turn. ‘Sit down and would you like a cup of tea, Inspector?’ Zehadim offered.

  ‘Thank you, no,’ Regan declined.

  ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘A little chat if you don’t mind, about Sheikh Haffasa. I’m in charge of his case.’

  ‘I see,’ Zehadim said, with just an edge on the words.

  ‘I’d like a curriculum vitae, dates, events of significance in his life. Names. I’d like a list of his friends, particularly in London, also in Bahrain.’

  ‘More appropriate perhaps, a list of enemies.’

  ‘Of course. But it’s from one’s closest friends that you get a full list of the up-to-date enemies.’

  Zehadim smiled a dark, brooding, mischievous smile. ‘A clever way of putting it. I’m not too sure I can help you there. You must understand Sheikh Haffasa was a bit of a recluse, a bit of a Howard Hughes. Though he was richer, of course. He was a private man. But there are some public things known about him.’

  ‘A question to you, sir. Have you any idea who might have killed him?’

  ‘An unhappy, uncomplicated answer, Inspector Regan. No, I have no idea. No one here in the Embassy has the slightest notion. We are all staggered by the news.’

  ‘You say he was immensely rich?’ Regan asked.

  ‘He was probably the richest man in our country.’

  Regan pondered the size of the huge man sitting behind the desk, the size of the fortune of Haffasa, and his own involvement. ‘How soon can you get me a list of his London-based friends?’

  ‘I will get my secretary on to phoning a couple of his best known friends in London, and then hope that they can supply a list. Perhaps by the end of the day I’ll be in a position to phone you at the Yard.’

  Regan stood. He didn’t feel that this soft spoken giant was going to be immediately forthcoming. He’d intended to keep the interview short. It was really just an introduction. Keep it short and he’d have an excuse to come again when he’d filled out more of the picture.

  Zehadim didn’t rise
. From his position behind the desk he pushed his chair back. ‘Inspector Regan, wait a second, old chap.’

  Regan hadn’t moved.

  ‘Look. There are elements about Haffasa’s death that you will be told about – but not by me. A plane comes into Heathrow 2200 hours tonight, a private job. On it will be one of our best detectives from Al-Manamah. His name, Europeanized, is Harry Hijaz. We will put him in contact with you. He will have ideas about why Haffasa was murdered...’

  ‘Does he think the murderer’s in London?’

  ‘Possibly,’ the man offered.

  ‘May I meet his plane?’

  ‘A Boeing 727. As I mentioned, ten o’clock.’

  Regan nodded.

  ‘I don’t promise that you will get anything out of Hijaz ... he may not want to talk to you tonight...’

  ‘I see,’ Regan said. He was suddenly getting pissed off with the large man. He got up. ‘You’ll be hearing from me.’ He moved to the door, and turned. ‘This Harry Hijaz, does he have diplomatic status?’

  Zehadim shrugged. ‘He’s not a diplomat. The answer is no.’

  ‘Then if he lands on British soil with information, I assure you I’ll get that information out of him. Good day,’ Regan said, and walked out.

  He went back to Squad Office. The white Mercedes carefully trailed him to the junction of Dacre Street with Victoria Street, then disappeared. His speculation about the two men inside it didn’t last long – he had plenty of other things to think about. But it did slightly worry him that he didn’t care. He should have phoned the Yard from the Embassy and informed a colleague about the white Mercedes and given its registration number.

  He walked through Security and asked the two clerks on the hall desk if they’d seen Detective Carter. Yes, they said, he was in the building. Regan took the lift to the fourth floor and walked the Squad corridor to the switchboard operator’s cubby hole at its end. ‘Harry,’ Regan addressed the man who was answering three calls simultaneously, ‘my DS is around. Find him for me.’

  Harry gave a vague look which sidled away. That signalled to Regan that he’d already been got at, that Carter had already visited and said something to Harry, like, ‘Sport, my guv will be around soon. Make out you can’t find me. There’s a scotch in it...’ The word would be all over Sweeney offices now that Regan had got lumbered with a dead-end case and would be looking for a mug to help share the load.

  He went to his office, picked up the phone and called Computer Bureau. A woman policeman answered, ‘DI Regan, Squad. Mercedes 280 SE HJJ 51 Kay Kilo – can you run a check? Phone back any DS in Squad Office with the brief to check full ownership. Yes luv?’

  ‘Yessir.’

  Regan replaced the phone. He didn’t want to spend the time ferreting around investigating a car’s ownership. He reckoned it would be a hired car. Let some DS find out who hired it, description of driver, check fingerprints on hiring receipts, documents, or car keys. That could be a whole day’s work.

  He sat down at his desk in his empty office and surveyed life on its last two days’ rampage. He studied out through the windows, the soaking vistas of polished slate roofs, as the rain fell onto the great sponge of London. It had reached the point where it had started to depress him. A dark wet city, and a lousy job. The Haffasa investigation was like the weather, poor visibility in every direction. But the story must have a profile and horizon. What had begun in the Wellington Clinic yesterday, a.m., had not only a beginning, but a middle and an end. Next step, a Bahrain detective coming into London airport on a private Boeing tonight.

  Regan thought about Arabs, his attitude to them. He’d never really come up against them before, and now he knew he was going to be seeing a lot of them. It wasn’t that he actively disliked them, but he housed some practical reservations about them. Two years ago, when his own world smelled of honeysuckle, he sold his Ford Cortina and bought a Rover 3500. The Rover 3.5 litre engine did about eighteen miles to the gallon. Not too great, but just bearable on a DI’s income. Then it seemed overnight the Arabs came along and doubled the price of petrol. Regan, who had conscientiously spent three years saving for his car, had to sell the bastard at the precise moment in history when all the other Rover 3.5 litre gas-guzzler owners were doing exactly the same thing. So he got fa for his example. Thus the Arab nations cost him actual bread, and pain, and puzzle. He couldn’t understand it. Before Henry Ford invented the oil industry, these wogs had been experienced merchants selling their mothers, sisters and other produce up and down the markets of Araby. How come the turbanned nits didn’t realize their actions were going to threaten the currencies of all countries in the world, including their own? Or was it a conspiracy, had the Maoists infiltrated the harems, had they the ears of those who were really running the shop?

  And what did they want the money for, Regan had wondered in those days? There was a limit to Asprey’s stock – you can only screw three or four high class tarts at one time. So why wreck capitalism if the sole trick that interested those ex tent dwellers and Elsan emptiers was the acquisition of material objects?

  On the other hand, he had to admit, the Arabs made good waiters. Down the Mile End Road, there was a gyppo restaurant called Al Ahrain where three darkly good-looking brothers did a good hot dinner under £2, tax, vat, and a large Bell’s and a couple of lagers thrown in. So they weren’t all bad, not every single one of the bastards.

  He picked up the phone and dialled the Squad switchboard. The operator answered.

  ‘I told you, find Carter,’ Regan said heavily. ‘He is in the building, get him for me.’

  ‘Yes guv,’ the ex-p.c. replied, and pulled the plug out on Regan before he could add anything more.

  Regan took out his Benson & Hedges and lit one. He exhaled and studied the little patterns of smoke for a clue. So far there was just a shambles. Not a single thing that he could put his hands on.

  The phone rang. It was the switchboard. ‘Guv, I’ve just heard Sergeant Carter has left the building.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Regan said bitterly, and threw the phone down.

  It rang again. Regan picked it up and was about to shout into it. It was the Computer Bureau. ‘280 Mercedes HJJ 5IK, Hertz – executive Rent-A-Car, St. James. Hired four days ago for a 24-hour period. Hertz are anxious about the car.’

  Regan thanked the Bureau, tapped the prongs and asked the switchboard to find him a DS. The switchboard found him a DS Casson. Regan spoke to him. ‘Go to Hertz, St. James. Get the invoice on a Merc, HJJ 5IK, place it in an envelope, bring it back to fingerprint. Get all other details of the hiring.’

  DS Casson said he would.

  Regan replaced the phone. Nothing significant was going to happen until Hijaz checked in tonight, so why not see if he could make another contact with the white Mercedes that had been trailing him.

  He checked his window again. Still persistent rain. He had a raincoat, but if he was going to walk, he’d need an umbrella. He contemplated from whom in Squad he would steal an umbrella. It was 4.30 now. The traffic would begin to thicken up soon, maybe not the best conditions for trying to corner the Mercedes. He hesitated a final time – the two men in the Mercedes were the only positive connection, however undefined, in this case. He should be making much more elaborate preparations for cornering the German car. If he fluffed a one-man operation, he might never see them again. He shrugged it off without resolving it. He walked down the corridor to DCS Hanley’s room – Hanley was in charge of the Property Index at CRO where all stolen goods are recorded. Regan stole his umbrella, and headed for the bank of elevators to the street.

  He walked down Dacre Street and turned right into Victoria Street. The wall of wet whistled and grabbed the umbrella almost out of his hands. These were no April showers. On top of the soaking consistency of the weather it looked now as if the sinking British island was in for a cold snap – a nice place to visit but who would want to live there.

  He studied the sour faces of the home-going, soaking the g
ale up through their spring dresses and lightweight suits – that would teach them. His eyes filtered through them, searching for threat. The men in the white Mercedes could quite easily become two of these pedestrians by the simple coup de theatre of parking their car. He walked mild-paced through the crowd, passed a Wimpy, stopped to look in a Ryman window. He had got half way down the street when he saw the Mercedes and the duo, tailing him through the traffic on the other side of the road. He had viewed them covertly – he reckoned they wouldn’t know he’d seen them. There were a number of options open to him. An instant’s mental shuffle of the cards in the pack and he came up with the only one he wanted to play. He wasn’t sure that he could single-handedly confront these guys, but he did want to know who they were, where they came from, who had sent them. He needed a place with an entrance and at least two exits – plus a cab rank close by.