Alternative outcome

by Peter Rowlands

  As often, I had mixed feelings about this. I could see a story in it, but I couldn’t help also feeling some sympathy for Ashton. I liked him, and had no personal wish to see him in trouble. It was one of the reasons why I doubted my commitment to my trade; I no longer had that instinct to go for the jugular.

  Over cocktails and canapés he collared me in person. “I liked your book.” His strong Australian accent was as striking as ever, and despite the grilling from the other journalists, he exuded confident goodwill. He chewed a vol au vent and gave me an amused smile.

  “You bought it then!”

  “Absolutely. Glad you tipped me the wink.” He took a sip of his mineral water. “You must have done a lot of research to know so much about that robbery.”

  “Well, enough to get by, anyway.”

  “I liked the way the daughter played a vital role. Did you actually get to meet her?”

  In truth I hadn’t bothered to research the real story in any detail, and certainly hadn’t met any of the characters involved. As far as I was concerned that hadn’t been the point. But I had the sense that this might now seem a weakness, so I merely shrugged and gave Rick what I hoped was a conspiratorial smile. “I’m sworn to secrecy.”

  He beamed mischievously at me. “So did you really find out what happened to the missing valuables?”

  “Aha. That’s for me to know and for you to find out.”

  “You planning on digging them up one day for your retirement fund?”

  “You’ve guessed my guilty secret.”

  He glanced round at the assembled journalists. “We could do with some of that loot around here, to be honest. Nice to get this rabble off my back.”

  “You’ll turn things round. You always do.” I didn’t know why I felt it was my role to reassure him, but it seemed a natural comment.

  “That’s what I like about you, Michael. You see the bigger picture. You’re not always looking for a scoop.”

  “Some people would call it a fault.”

  * * *

  Should I arm myself with better knowledge of the real robbery? It might help me fend of further enquiries in the vein of Rick’s. Back at home that evening I trawled the internet for information. News stories about the theft were still few and far between, but my original impression was confirmed; most of the gang had been arrested within days of the robbery, but one suspect, Liam Stone, had never been caught.

  Then my eye was caught by a link I hadn’t seen before. Years later, Australian police had arrested someone they thought at first was him. He was apparently living near Cairns in Queensland under an assumed name. However, he had somehow slipped the net before they had gathered any conclusive evidence, and apparently he had never been seen since.

  While I was on the internet I thought I’d check on my latest book sales. How was the world receiving my fictionalised version of events? I was disappointed to find that my total sales had increased by just one unit since the last time I’d looked. The honeymoon period was apparently drawing to a close.

  I was about to log off when I noticed that no fewer than three people had written reviews of the book. This I had to see.

  The first was by “JM”, which I immediately took to be Joanna Miles. She’d said she would write a review, and evidently she had. “Elegant, transparent prose,” it said. Yeah yeah. “It really had me turning the pages.” I wished I’d asked her to avoid clichés if she could. “Believable characters, and a clever interweaving of two apparently unconnected plot lines.” That bit I liked. She’d given it five stars out of five.

  Good on Joanna, I thought, and scrolled down. The next reviewer had given the book only three stars, “and it just scrapes that rating because of its moderately interesting subject matter.” I looked for a reviewer’s name, but didn’t recognise the nom de plume.

  “There are simply too many clichés,” the reviewer complained. “You’ll find set-piece scenes that you’ve watched in a thousand films, dialogue you’ve read in a thousand novels. The characters can seem deceptively real until you ask yourself where you’ve met them before. The answer is everywhere, and often.”

  Charming. A reviewer with attitude. I knew there’d be negative comment, but I wasn’t expecting such a comprehensive hatchet job so soon. Unfortunately, self-publishing meant setting yourself up to be shot down, and there was nothing you could do about it.

  What about the third review? I scrolled down further, and found that it consisted of just one line: “So what happened to the loot?”

  I smiled to myself. At least this reviewer was getting into the spirit of the thing.

  Chapter 27

  Next day I rang Dave Matthews and suggested meeting for a curry. We’d never had a meal together before, but he’d been helpful and supportive over the past few weeks, and it seemed a natural step.

  I did, however, have an ulterior motive. I wanted to show him those pictures of Janni Noble, and see if he thought they amounted to significant new evidence against him. I was aware that once he knew about the pictures I couldn’t pretend they didn’t exist, but I’d decided I had to do something to move matters forward. I printed out the clearest shots on photographic paper and took them with me to the restaurant.

  “Blimey, Mike, I should be doing you for withholding evidence.”

  “But for god’s sake, I told you – I never even realised I had these. I mean I knew I had them, but I didn’t know Janni Noble was in them. I only found that out the other day when I started looking closely at them. If you factor him out, there’s nothing here that your people didn’t know already.”

  “Calm down, I’m only winding you up. You’re too sensitive.”

  “So would you be.”

  He shuffled through the photographs. “Not exactly David Bailey, are we?”

  “Photography is not my first skill set.”

  “Or your second, to judge from these.” He squinted for a long time at the shadowy figure of Janni Noble, then looked up again.

  “I don’t think these are much use, to be honest.”

  Eagerly I said, “Really?” I felt an instant sense of relief.

  “You know and I know that it must be him, but it’s completely circumstantial. It could be anybody.”

  “So you don’t think you could do anything with them?”

  He screwed his face into an exaggerated show of thought – a characteristic gesture I’d seen many times in the past – then relaxed again. “I honestly doubt it. It’s too long ago, and if this is all we have, it’s nothing.” He let the prints drop on the tablecloth. “Course, I ought to let our photographic team loose on the original digital files, just to see what they can rescue.”

  “I had a go, and I don’t think they’d get much.”

  “They’re very clever these days …” He broke off as our meal arrived, then picked up the prints. He looked briefly at them again, then seemed to come to a decision. He handed them to me, leaning forward. “Tell you what, why don’t you take these away. I’ve never seen them. As far as I know they never existed.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Really?”

  “Hurry up, before I think again.”

  So I pocketed the prints, nodding my acknowledgement to him. I asked, “Do you think Janni Noble might be after these? Does it make sense to you that he could be the one behind these break-ins at my house, and that kidnapping fiasco the other day?”

  He shrugged. “Well, he must have known you were there with a camera. He was there himself. But he wouldn’t know his face was in those reflections. How could he?” He hesitated. “You never published them anywhere, did you?”

  I shook my head. “No, but his brother could have shown them to him.”

  He looked up quickly. “What? You let Tommy Noble have these pictures? What were you thinking?”

  I shrugged. “It was part of the deal, Dave. He wouldn’t have let me take them otherwise.”

  He shook his head. “Amateurs,” he muttered.

  “So you agree that he
could be trying to get hold of the originals.”

  “I don’t know, mate. You’re telling me Tommy has copies, so he might think they amount to evidence against his brother. That’s exactly what I told you before.”

  “And?”

  “Well, in theory I suppose Janni might be trying to get in ahead of him. He might be hoping that some of the pictures you took show Tommy’s face as well as his own. If they did, and he could get hold of them, that would make the two of them even.”

  I sensed doubt in his words, and raised my eyes.

  He said, “It just sounds altogether too far-fetched to me. Too much guesswork – too many assumptions. I’m not at all convinced.”

  I asked if there had been any progress with establishing who was behind the kidnapping. He said no. “Bit of a weird one, that. Your locals don’t know what to make of it, and I don’t see any way of connecting it to Noble.” He looked at me, assessing. “How about other people you’ve rubbed up the wrong way with your articles? Any thoughts about someone else who could be behind this?”

  I shook my head. Nothing else that I’d ever written had seemed close enough to the edge to provoke this kind of reaction, and my other probing articles had been written years ago. But perhaps I hadn’t given it enough thought.

  “I’ll let you know if anything comes to mind.”

  “And meanwhile, if I were you I’d keep my guard up.”

  “What d’you think I’m doing? I hardly dare walk to the corner shop for a paper these days, in case there’s someone hiding behind the phone box, waiting to nab me.”

  He gave a low chuckle. I said, “You can laugh, but it’s really stressful. I’ve never experienced anything like it. Everything out there in the world seems a potential threat.”

  “I know.” He looked at me thoughtfully. “All I meant was be watchful. Sounds as if you’re doing that already. Hopefully the police presence will have frightened these people off.”

  “It would be nice to think so.”

  * * *

  There was something I was missing in this whole Noble affair – an element that I’d failed to slot into place. I sat at my desk next morning, trying to think it through. It seemed evident to me that Janni Noble had been involved in the people trafficking operation – but why? That was the crux of it. He was running an apparently successful up-and-coming transport business, so why did he need to break the law in this elaborate and risk-prone way?

  To make sure I was on the right lines, I did some internet trawling. Sure enough, his company, Allied Northern, had been trading well within its means when the police moved in, and had had a sound balance sheet. Janni didn’t need extra money to keep it afloat.

  In any case, surely he would have needed to be running a smuggling operation of grand proportions to earn enough from it to sustain a failing business of this size?

  Afterwards his company had faltered, but only because of the adverse publicity surrounding the case. Janni had disposed of the assets piecemeal, rather than selling it on as a going concern, but had evidently recouped enough to set him up on a new career path.

  I felt I needed a better insight into the company, and I had an idea who could help me: Freddie, the man I’d bumped into at the logistics event in west London. He’d told me he now worked in Stoke-on-Trent, but he’d been a lynchpin at Allied before the company went bust. I picked up my phone and called directory enquiries.

  “Freddie, it’s Mike Stanhope, the journalist from London. I wondered if you’d mind if I dropped in on you? It’s not for an article – I just wondered if you’d be willing to have a private word?”

  * * *

  What I needed now was an excuse to drive north again. I phoned Jason Bright. “I know it’s a cheek, but I’m looking for a job to do in the north. Something to pay my fare, anyway. Have you got anything coming up?”

  I could hear him rummaging on his desk. “Something came in yesterday. Let me have a look.” Another pause. “Yeah, here it is. Next Thursday a truck body manufacturer in Blackburn is celebrating twenty five years in the biz. Try to contain your excitement.”

  “So you want me to cover it.”

  “Well, I can’t justify the travel cost for such a small story, but if you can come up with a half-decent report I’ll pay you the going rate for it.”

  “Can’t say fairer than that. Thanks.”

  “Happy to oblige.”

  I was on the point of disconnecting when a thought struck me. “Jason, do you mind if I ask you a question?”

  “Fire away.”

  “Well, I know I’ve cocked up on a few things lately. I wondered if you’d shunted me off your favoured freelance list? I meant to ask you the other day at the Vantage event, but I never go the chance.”

  He didn’t answer at first, which seemed ominous, but then said, “I might as well be honest, Mike – we nearly did. But in the end we didn’t. You’ve done some decent stuff for us lately, and we have a history with you. Basically we still know we’ll get a good result from you.” He hesitated. “We will, won’t we?”

  “Course you will. I appreciate it, Jason.”

  I sat back, not knowing whether to be pleased that my livelihood wasn’t currently under threat, or worried to think it so nearly had been. Some things are better not known.

  Chapter 28

  The traffic on the M6 was kind – which was just as well. I’d made a ridiculously early start. I had three visits to fit into this trip.

  The first was to the logistics company in Stoke-on-Trent, a city whose geography always left me baffled. It appeared to have no formal centre, being made of a collection of smaller towns clustered together. However, my satnav guided me to the sprawling site of the company on the outskirts of Hanley, and I walked in at half past nine.

  Freddie took the trouble to meet me in the foyer. He was wearing a dark jacket and an open-neck white shirt. He led me to his upstairs office – a pleasant space with flowers on the window sill and pictures of his family on the wall: his wife in a headscarf, plus two girls and a boy, all under ten. He sat down behind his desk and looked at me expectantly.

  “You’ve landed on your feet,” I commented.

  “I suppose so, but to be honest I’d have been just as happy if I could have stayed at Allied.”

  I raised my eyebrows. He’d started to answer my main question before I even asked. I said, “As it happens, that’s really why I’ve come today. I realise I’ve probably got a nerve, but I’m hoping you can tell me a bit about Janni Noble.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, you know and I know that he was implicated in that people trafficking scam, but nothing came of it. I’m just trying to get a sense of how the people on the ground saw it all. What did you make of it yourself?”

  “What’s it to you, if you don’t mind me asking?” He sounded not hostile, just cautious.

  “Well, the police wanted to make him out as an arch-villain, but I can’t find anyone else who sees him that way. According to reports at the time, no one at the company had a bad word to say about him. I’m trying to get a balanced picture in my head.”

  He hesitated a moment, then seemed to come to a conclusion. “OK. Right. I can probably tell you what you want to know.”

  I waited while he marshalled his thoughts. Finally he said, “What you say is pretty much true. I always thought Janni Noble was a good guy. Tough – a real taskmaster. Expected results. But he was fair. He thanked you if you delivered for him. He was the kind of guy you wanted to work for. Everyone else there thought more or less the same thing – except the slackers, and who needs them anyway?”

  I nodded, then said cautiously, “Obviously you didn’t know anything about this trafficking stuff?”

  “Obviously not.” He frowned.

  “Did it surprise you when you heard about it?”

  He thought about that for a while. “Well yes, it surprised me that he would be into something like that. But if anyone was going to make a good job of it, Janni
would have been your man. Very efficient, whatever he turned his hand to.”

  “But why would he have done it?”

  “You’d have to ask him that yourself. Not for the money, I’m sure.”

  “What do you think, then?”

  He shrugged. “I always wondered if maybe he was on some kind of mission.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “No idea, but he’s an earnest man. If he had a cause, he would be hard to stop. That’s why everyone liked him. He was committed, and people identify with that.”

  I paused to absorb all this, then asked, “How about Tommy Noble?”

  “Tommy? Complete waste of space. Janni only employed him as a favour. He blundered around, acting like one of the bosses, but most of the time he was completely out of his depth. He was in sales and marketing, but he didn’t know one end of a truck from the other.”

  “But he was in the front line when the police were investigating the trafficking allegations.”

  “I wouldn’t know about that, but if he was involved, he probably thought he would score with Janni by showing how smart he was. Or more likely, Janni was just looking for an excuse to get him away from the customers before he offended too many of them.”

  “Ha! I suppose that makes sense.”

  “Not that it would have mattered in the end. By the time the police came in and started interviewing everybody, Tommy was on notice.”

  “Really?” I didn’t think anyone had ever mentioned this to me.

  “That’s what we heard. I think Janni had finally had enough of him. We all thought good riddance.”

  As I drove away from the depot I thought over this last piece of information. Here was yet another reason why Tommy Noble might have blown the whistle on his brother. He’d probably known by then that his time at the company was limited, and decided to go out with a bang.