by Hayden, Mark
‘Are you sure?’
‘As sure as I can be.’
Ogden nodded.
‘There is something else you could do,’ continued Tom. ‘You could promote me to DCI.’
Ogden laughed. ‘Nice try, lad. Nice try.’
‘Actually,’ said Leonie, ‘that might not be a bad idea.’ Ogden spluttered something about his budget but she held up her hand. ‘Hear me out.’ She looked at Tom. ‘From what I’ve heard, this case is a bit of a crusade for you, isn’t it?’
‘Up to a point. I haven’t acted unprofessionally in any way but, yes, I want to get to the bottom of it.’
She nodded. ‘Would I be right in saying that CIPPS wouldn’t have been your first choice of career path?’ She didn’t wait for him to answer. ‘How about this for a solution? I’ll be nominally in charge of the investigation, but you can run it in whatever way you see fit. I’ll join you when you meet the Chief then go back to London. We’ll promote you to DCI on the understanding – the clear understanding – that you’ll do at least another year in CIPPS after this is finished before you even think about looking for a job elsewhere. Would that work, Tom? Sir?’
Ogden rubbed his jaw. ‘Works for me.’
Tom was a great believer in the Art of the Possible. He wasn’t going to get a better offer anywhere else. He stood up and extended his hand to Leonie. ‘I look forward to working with you, Ma’am.’
She shook his hand firmly in response. ‘It’s Leonie, not “Ma’am”. I’m not your commanding officer, I’m your manager.’
Ogden shook his hand too and then asked about support.
‘I want to use DC Hayes from MCPS. She’s good and she knows the case.’
‘Fine. Please thank Mrs Morton again for the lunch. She’s a right good cook. Come on, Leonie, shall we head off to Harrogate?’
Ogden went to get his coat. Leonie leaned towards Tom and gave him a conspiratorial wink. ‘Your mother knows a good deli, doesn’t she?’
Tom whispered back, ‘I learned everything I know about cooking from our housekeeper.’
She patted him on the shoulder, and he tried not to grimace with pain. At least it was his right shoulder.
They left the house, and he made a quick phone call to Hayes with the news.
‘That’s great, sir.’ she said. ‘I don’t want to put a dampener on things, but I’ve heard on the grapevine that Patrick Lynch has done a runner. Well … he’s been reported missing by his wife, and his Jaguar’s disappeared.’
‘That’s not good. Look, Kris, I can’t start until Wednesday at the earliest. When you get back on Monday, can you dig around a bit?’
‘No problem.’
Tom thanked her and rang off. His next call was to the insurance company to continue arguing about the value of his burnt out car, currently sitting in the forensic lab.
Clarke and his hosts adjourned to the kitchen where the smells of cooking turned out to be from a rich, heart-warming French onion soup. After they’d taken the edge of their hunger, Lady Jennings put down her spoon and looked at Clarke.
‘You’re going to have to meet her again, you know.’
He tried to grin in response. ‘I’m good at keeping a low profile, you know.’
‘Not easy with your height, I imagine.’
Clarke bowed his head towards her and brushed his hand over it. ‘I’m losing my hair as well as having a limp. Soon I’ll be just as anonymous as the next man.’
Susan kept a straight face. He couldn’t figure out whether this topic was being raised for his benefit or their daughter’s. Was he going to be warned to stay away from her clutches or to keep his hands off her?
‘According to Stephen, you’re going to be moving in one of her circles,’ said Susan.
He turned to Jennings. ‘That’s news to me.’
Jennings looked down at his soup. ‘We haven’t got round to specifics yet. Still sorting out the context.’
‘I don’t want to steal your thunder,’ she responded to her husband. To Clarke, she said, ‘Amelia’s had a chequered career since you split up.’
Clarke wanted to put his cards on the table. He was guessing from their attitude that a number of men had been smitten by Amelia over the years. It was a good job they didn’t know that he’d hung on to the ring for nine years. Well, it was gone now. ‘I think “since she dumped me” rather than “split up” would be a more accurate description, Susan. It was a long time ago and I’ve travelled a long way since then.’
‘I’m sure you have,’ said Susan. ‘It’s just that Amelia has a tendency to look on her exes as a resource to be exploited. Just to warn you, that’s all.’
‘Noted. What’s she been up to career-wise? She told me she’d been offered a job in America when we last met.’
Sir Stephen interjected, ‘It’s a bit more complicated than that.’
Susan glanced at her husband then put her hand on Clarke’s. ‘He’s trying to spare your blushes, Conrad. What he means is that when Amelia was touring the States, she hooked up with a US congressman and had an affair. He was married, of course, but Amelia convinced him to take her on as part of the team in advance of his bid for the Senate in 2002.’
‘Oh,’ said Conrad. He had never given a thought to whether Amelia had been faithful to him during their time apart. The important thing was whether she came back and stuck to him. He shouldn’t be surprised to learn that she had slept her way to a job. Susan patted his hand now that she’d broken the news and started to eat her soup again.
‘How did he get on?’ asked Clarke. ‘In the election, I mean?’
‘He won. Before the polling day, however, his wife found out about Amelia and gave him an ultimatum: get rid of the Limey or I’ll dump you during the election. The congressman got Amelia’s Green Card revoked.’
Sounds like they were well suited, he thought. He kept the thought to himself, however, and nodded his understanding to Susan.
She finished her soup and pushed the bowl aside. ‘Once he’d done that, he made it up to her. He used one of his contacts to get her a job in London and, professionally speaking, she’s never looked back.’
‘Is she still in politics?’
‘She never was in politics,’ said Sir Stephen. ‘She was in PR and happened to work for a politician. She’s taken a sideways move and works as an event planner for celebrities now. Not a world you’re familiar with, I’m sure.’
Clarke deflected that assertion by asking Susan if Amelia had arranged the article about the kitchen.
‘It was her idea of a bloody birthday present.’ said Jennings.
Clarke looked at the couple – Sir Stephen was still harbouring some resentment about having his home invaded by photographers and plastered all over a magazine: the little smile on his wife’s face as she got up to fetch some cake said that it might have been the best birthday present she’d ever been given. Her friends and neighbours would have been green with envy.
She asked him about his health over tea and cakes, and then Sir Stephen stood up. ‘You’ll be wanting a smoke,’ he said. ‘I’ll show you round the garden.’
His host collected his dog and his pullover from the drawing room, sneaked a portion of cake for the dog and waited whilst Clarke put his boots back on.
Jennings led him through a dormant kitchen garden to the formal gardens at the rear, then to a lower, less formal lawned area with an old tennis court, tucked away from sight of the house. He made no effort to talk about the gardens and passed through them as if they were like the house – just there. What he did do was throw a tennis ball for his dog while Clarke lit a cigarette.
‘You’ll be working with my son-in-law,’ began Jennings.
‘At the racecourse?’
Jennings threw the ball and gave him a grin. ‘Absolutely. Best place I’ve ever come across for laundering money. All those on-course bookmakers.’
Clarke had been to many race meetings and enjoyed a flutter, but he had never been a gambler aw
ay from the track. ‘I think I might be a bit out of my comfort zone there.’
‘You’ll get the hang of it. Julian knows roughly what’s going on and he can point you in the right direction. He also has a key to Offlea’s cottage and knows where the books are kept. You’ll need them.’
Clarke smoked for a moment and contemplated his fate. He had passed within a mile or so of Fylde Racecourse when he went on an RAF visit to the jet fighter factory at Warton, but otherwise the area was terra incognita to him.
‘That’s not all,’ continued Sir Stephen. ‘There’s an interchange arrangement that Julian knows nothing about.’
‘I’m sorry. You’ve lost me there.’
‘Do you remember how those bundles of notes looked when you shipped them out?’
Clarke was hardly going to forget what a half a million pounds looked like. Or dollars. Or Euros. The mere thought made him feel faint. He nodded.
‘The Foreign Office and the MOD kept track of the serial numbers of those banknotes. We couldn’t have them just turning up by the truckload in Lancashire. Nor could we invent planeloads of Eurozone and dollar gamblers for the racecourse. All the currency needs to be turned into used, non-sequential Bank of England notes.’
‘Did Offlea do all that himself? Sounds like a full time job for a small team, not a part-time job for one man.’
‘He just did transport. Other people arranged the exchange, and some of them are quite dangerous to know. You’ll need to protect yourself.’
‘I’m sure. I’ll be very careful.’
‘I know. That’s one of the reasons I chose you, Clarke. For such a risk taker, you have an extraordinarily well-developed sense of self-preservation.’
The dog was sitting in front of them, patiently wagging its tail. Jennings rubbed the ball in his hands to get his scent on it then hurled it as far as he could into a group of shrubs before starting to walk back towards the house.
‘You’ll have to find somewhere up there to live, but you can stay at the Sporting Hotel until then.’
An idea was forming in the back of Clarke’s mind. ‘Excuse me asking, but what’s going to happen to the counterfeiting operation? I can’t imagine the printers will want to just stop.’
‘I told Offlea to help himself to whatever they had already printed and take it with him abroad. You’re right, though, the printers will keep going – as will the Principal Investor who brought them on board.’
‘That could be dangerous.’ He was about to say for you, but changed his mind. ‘For us, I mean.’
‘How so?’
‘Our dogged little Detective Inspector Morton won’t let a bomb blast stop him. He’ll be back on the case when the notes start showing up. If he’s more successful this time, you can guarantee that the printers will point the finger in our direction if they’re caught.’
‘A good point. Perhaps we should try to find an outlet abroad for them.’
‘I might have a safer idea. Give me a couple of days to think about it.’
Jennings nodded. They stopped between the stables and the back door: clearly he wasn’t being invited back inside. ‘One more thing,’ said Jennings. ‘Now that Susan’s satisfied her curiosity, you’ll make all future visits by arrangement with me. Understood?’
Clarke nodded.
Jennings took his hands out of his pockets. He gave Clarke a firm handshake with his right, and with his left he passed over a mobile phone.
‘Good luck.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
Now that the chain of command had been firmly established, it seemed right to slip back into calling his boss sir. Clarke resisted the urge to salute and turned to untie his horse. As he did so, the figure of a cloaked man slipped around the corner of the Hall. He couldn’t put it off any longer. He had to book himself that appointment with the neurologist before he did anything else.
Kate stood in the tube station with her bags packed at her feet. She studied the map and tapped her Oyster card against her hand. Paddington or Waterloo? Should she see her father first or go straight to see Gareth Wade’s widow?
She put her Oyster card away and sent her father a text. Hi dad. Wd like to visit tonight. OK? X.
He could be giving a lecture and might not reply for a while, so she left the ticket hall and went in search of a coffee. Before she could locate one, she got a reply. Want to see you soon but not this weekend. Busy. X.
That was strange. If she didn’t know him better, she might almost think he were up to something. She turned around and headed back to the tube: Paddington it is.
‘Thank you for fitting me in,’ said Clarke.
‘Not a problem,’ said the neurologist. ‘Let me just look at the EEG printout for a minute.’
He had been there for an hour already, and spent twenty minutes lying down while a medical technician taped electrodes to his head for an electro-encephalograph. The neurologist had breezed in carrying a coffee, and had started looking at the results before she had even taken her coat off. She was of Indian extraction, but obviously second- or third-generation judging by her Midlands accent. As a private patient, Clarke had been well looked after, and was dunking a biscuit into his second cup of tea.
She looked up at him and switched on her smile. ‘I don’t have all the notes here from your extensive trauma event.’
‘You mean the crash and the explosion.’
‘Yes. I’m sorry about your leg, but it’s the crash I’m more concerned about. Did you bang your head at all? Were you treated for any head trauma?’
‘I blacked out, I know that much, but it can’t have been for more than a second or two. I didn’t have any visual problems and all my reactions functioned as they should. Good job they did or I wouldn’t be here.’
‘That’s a good sign. Did they do any scans when you were repatriated?’
‘No.’
She went on to ask about headaches, seizures, blurred vision and so on. She looked in his eyes and made careful notes when he described seeing the man in the cloak. After all that, she went back to the EEG.
‘The good news is that I don’t think you have an advanced case of anything,’ she said with some enthusiasm. Clarke was inclined to agree about the good news part and waited for her to go on with the inevitable bad news. ‘On the other hand, Conrad, there are many things that don’t show up on an EEG, and there’s one thing that has. Have a look at this.’
She passed over the printout and pointed to one of the lines. ‘See here. There’s a small flat section, then a big spike before it returns to normal. Only in one place, though. I’d like to have a proper look with an MRI scan.’
‘How soon can you do it?’
‘About a month on the NHS. Or tomorrow if you can afford £375. I can go through the results with you on Monday.’
‘Where do I sign?’
She laughed. ‘Good. You should be alright to drive for a while. There’s no indication of any generalised irregularity. As I say, you don’t have an advanced case of anything.’
‘That’s a relief. I’ll try not to fly any helicopters until we’ve seen each other again.’
She took him seriously. ‘I think that’s a good idea. Oh ... before we go any further, is there any shrapnel in your neck or head?’
‘I don’t think so. Why?’
‘We need to be sure. The magnets in the scanner can pull a hairgrip right off someone’s head. Imagine what that would do to a piece of metal in your brain.’
Ouch. He tried not to think about that.
‘Thanks, Doctor, I’ll see you on Monday.’
The receptionist sorted out the scan for tomorrow, and Clarke left the building. Lighting a cigarette, he looked around. No men in cloaks. Good. He walked to the end of the street and hailed a taxi to take him to a solicitor’s office in the City.
Stopping for a drink on the way home, he saw the muted television in the bar tuned to a rolling news channel. Pictures of the prime minister in the desert, talking to soldiers, we
re supplemented by captions: PM’s pledge to troops: total withdrawal by 2015 … “We are not abandoning Afghanistan and our soldiers can be proud of what they have achieved.” … Arsenal keeper signs long-term deal …
‘Proud? Tell that to the ones who came home in a body bag,’ he muttered to himself.
Chapter 5
Wales – York
Saturday
20 November
The house had been easy enough to find. Gareth Wade’s widow had several public listings, and Kate located it on the map then planned a circular walk from the village that would take her past the Wade residence and on to the coast before returning to her hire car.
It was bitterly cold and snow had begun to appear in the forecast for Wales: she needed every layer she had brought with her, and it wouldn’t be out of place to wear a scarf over her face. She set a brisk pace to try and get some warmth into her legs and enjoyed battling up the hill.
Almost at the top, the house appeared on her right, slightly raised up and commanding uninterrupted views of the sea. It must be beautiful in summer.
It was a modern dormer bungalow in a style that someone once called Southfork on Sea. The original property had been added to at the side, and the whole front was glass. Triple-pane sliding doors would open to a terrace for barbecues. Perched on the sloping drive was a people carrier: Mrs Wade and her tribe were at home.
She continued her walk and soon reached the exposed headland. There were no more layers to put on, and she could feel the wind seeking out the smallest gap in her waterproofs. Kate had nearly been arrested for impersonating a police officer not so long ago, and wasn’t going to try that again. So, Mrs Wade, is it going to be good non-cop or bad non-cop? Picking up her rucksack, she walked back down to the house. Right up until she pressed the bell, she had no idea what she was going to say.
A boy of about ten or eleven answered the door, and Kate asked if she could speak to his mother. He trailed off into the house. ‘Mam, there’s someone at the door for you.’