Gareth Dawson Series Box Set
Page 84
There was a silence on the other end of the line, and Annette knew that Gareth had nothing to say to that.
“Okay, so we wait,” he said, eventually.
“We wait for what?”
“For him to get in touch again. He will at some point.”
“What’s the point, Gareth? So he sends me another untraceable e-mail. How does that help?” There was another silence in response to an unanswerable question.
Annette said goodbye to Gareth and put her phone away. She stared at the ducks making their way up the river in search of food and got to her feet. With a last view down the river to the spot where the boat had rounded the corner, she turned and started walking back to Wroxham.
Ten minutes later, Annette pushed open the heavy doors to a building next to Roy’s of Wroxham. She walked inside, grateful for the air-conditioning. Annette hadn’t realised how hot it was outside until she walked into the cool interior. She looked around to orientate herself and walked across the marble floor to her destination.
“Can I help you?” a young woman asked as Annette approached. According to her name badge, her name was Susan. She was fresh-faced and full of optimism, almost as if Annette coming to speak to her was the best thing that had happened to her all day.
“Yes, I think so,” Annette replied.
“What can I do for you today?” Susan said, hiking her smile up even further.
“I’d like to make a bank transfer, please,” Annette replied. “A rather large one.”
58
“Officer Sukarba, please?” Ronnie asked the sullen-faced policeman behind the desk. He was in the police station in Denpasar where he had been taken the previous week. The policeman didn’t reply, but picked up the phone on his desk before barking into it in rapid Indonesian. He stared at Ronnie as he listened to the reply.
“Name?”
“Ronnie Phelps.” There was another exchange on the line, and the policeman put the handset back in the cradle. He stepped out from behind his desk and crossed to a door leading off the waiting room, gesturing Ronnie into the room beyond it.
Ronnie stepped into the compact room and jumped as the door crashed closed behind him. It was small and windowless, perhaps twelve foot square. The only furniture was a table and two folding chairs, none of which looked particularly robust. The walls were bare cinder block, and a single bulb dangled from the ceiling. The only other thing in the room was a camera in the top corner. As Ronnie watched, a single red light blinked steadily.
He eased himself gingerly into one of the chairs. It groaned under his weight, but didn’t collapse. While he waited for the policeman, he thought about his next steps. Ronnie had put a bid in on the discussion board for the man in Chester who he thought would be good for a few thousand, and the vendor had told him that there were a few more in the pipeline that he would give Ronnie first dibs on and for a good price. Not for the first time, he wondered who the vendors were and where they got their information from.
His best guess was either a bent copper or at least someone involved in the legal system. The packs came with a vast amount of information on the marks. As well as the incriminating photographs and videos, there was a dossier with personal information. Relatives, employers, even their estimated worth was included.
If he could snare the man in Chester, then he would leave Bali for the Philippines. He would have enough money to start over as someone new. All he needed to do between now and that point in time was keep his nose clean, and his urges under control. Not all of them; just the ones that people frowned on.
Ronnie had been sitting on the chair for about twenty minutes before he heard some noises outside the door. He had been tempted a few moments ago to see if it was open or if they had locked him in. The interior of the room was stuffy and smelt of stale sweat. His, and perhaps its previous occupants. Ronnie glanced up at the flashing red light on the camera. A few seconds later, he realised that it had stopped blinking. Someone had turned the camera off.
The door creaked on its hinges as it opened, and Sukarba walked in. Ronnie looked at him, not liking the look of disgust on the policeman’s face. He sat opposite Ronnie, the creaking of his chair drowned out by the noise of the door closing behind him.
“Mr Phelps,” Sukarba said in a threatening tone. “I hope you have something for me?”
“I do, Officer Sukarba,” Ronnie replied. A little civility probably wouldn’t hurt. Ronnie had no idea if the police in Bali were known as Officer this or that, but he did know that the horrible little man sitting opposite would appreciate the formality. “Do you have something for me?”
A slow smile spread across the policeman’s face.
“I might have,” he replied. “You show me yours and I’ll show you mine.”
Ronnie reached into his pocket and pulled out an envelope. It was stuffed with banknotes. Two hundred and fifty million rupiah, or about fourteen thousand pounds. He watched as the policeman’s eyes lit up.
“Very good, Mr Phelps,” Sukarba said. “Very good.”
“Do you have my swabs? And fingerprints?”
“Do you not trust me to dispose of them?”
Ronnie thought for a second. The simple answer to that question was no; he didn’t trust the policeman as far as he could throw him.
“I would rather have them myself,” he said, “as a keepsake of my time here in Bali.”
“You’re not staying?”
“I think it’s time to move on.”
Sukarba stared at Ronnie for a few seconds, his face passive. Then he got to his feet, opened the door, and shouted something in Indonesian. Ronnie saw the policeman behind the desk get to his feet before the door swung shut again.
“My colleague will get them. May I?” Sukarba pointed at the envelope. Ronnie was reluctant to hand it over before he’d got what he came here for, but he had no choice. He watched as the policeman carefully counted the notes. When he had finished, Sukarba smiled and closed the envelope before putting it into the thigh pocket of his trousers.
Ronnie looked at him, trying to hide his nervousness. If Sukarba got up and walked out, there would be nothing he could do. The policeman didn’t seem to be going anywhere, though.
“While you are still here in Bali, Mr Phelps,” Sukarba said, “I would suggest that you exercise a lot of caution.” He glanced up at the camera in the corner of the room, which was still turned off. “I have eyes and ears everywhere, and you are quite a distinctive man. The areas you frequent are not ones that see many westerners, unless they are lost, and they frequently come to harm.”
“I understand,” Ronnie replied, his mouth dry. He would ask for a glass of water, but he didn’t want Sukarba to go anywhere.
The two men stared at each other for a few seconds until Ronnie looked away from Sukarba’s penetrating eyes. The sooner he could get out of the police station, the better. Eventually, after what seemed to Ronnie like an eternity, the door to the interview room opened and the other policeman entered the room. With a scornful look at Ronnie, he threw two plastic Ziplock bags onto the table before leaving. In one of the bags was a fingerprint card, and in the other a small plastic tube with a swab inside.
“There you are, Mr Phelps,” Sukarba said, scraping his chair back and getting to his feet. “We are, how do you say, honours even?”
Ronnie scooped up the bags and thrust them into his jacket pocket. One thing that there was very little of in the interview room was honour, but he decided against saying anything to the policeman.
When he stepped back out into the sunshine, Ronnie almost had a spring in his step. Now that he had one less monkey on his back, he could start planning his next moves. There was one, in particular, he was looking forward to a lot. He smiled in the sunshine, knowing that the bitch McGuire hadn’t heard the last of Ronnie Phelps.
59
Malcolm yawned, leaning back in his chair as he did so. Even though it was only eleven o’clock in the morning, he was exhausted. He’d not be
en sleeping very well for the last few weeks, but last night he didn’t think he’d slept for more than a couple of hours. He knew he should go to the doctor, see if he could do anything about it or give him some pills. But like most men of his age, Malcolm had an inherent fear of doctors.
On the desk in front of him, his phone rang. Rubbing at his eyes, he picked it up.
“Detective Superintendent Griffiths?”
“Hi, sir. It’s Constable Harris on the front desk. There’s a bloke here who says he’s got some information on that diver that was found up at Cley-next-the-Sea.”
“Is DC Hunter about?” Malcolm asked. He really couldn’t be bothered to talk to someone who almost certainly would turn out to be a crackpot.
“No, sir. I did try her first. She’s on a job out at Yarmouth.”
“Do you know who this chap is?”
“Says he works for the Eastern Daily News.”
Malcolm thought for a few seconds. Talking to the press wasn’t something that he did often, if at all, but occasionally they found out things that the police couldn’t.
“Okay, put him in one of the interview rooms. I’ll be down in a few minutes.”
Malcolm took his time getting down to the ground floor. He visited the bathroom to make sure that his eyes weren’t too bloodshot, but they were. He wouldn’t have minded so much if it had been from booze, but he’d not had a drop the night before. Maybe that was where he was going wrong, he thought as he looked at himself in the mirror.
“Thanks, Harris,” Malcolm said as the policeman on the front desk told him that the visitor was in Interview Room Three. It was the nicest of the interview rooms and had armchairs and soft furnishings as opposed to the stark functionality of the other rooms.
“His name’s Christin, sir,” Harris told Malcolm as he walked toward the room. “Daniel Christin.”
The visitor in the interview room was in his mid to late thirties, and in Malcolm’s opinion at least, well dressed. Especially for a journalist. He was sitting on one of the chairs, clutching a laptop to his chest as if Malcolm was about to steal it.
“Mr Christin?” Malcolm said as he entered the room.
“Yes, that’s me,” the journalist replied. He was talking quickly and was perspiring, even though the air-conditioning was on.
“Detective Superintendent Griffiths,” Malcolm said, extending his hand. After they shook hands, he had to resist the urge to wipe his hand on his trousers. “Did Harris offer you a drink?”
“No, he didn’t.”
“Would you like one? I’m going to have a coffee.”
“Thanks, that’d be great. Can I get one with milk and no sugar?”
Malcolm left the room and spoke to the policeman on the desk.
“Harris, can you rustle up a couple of coffees, please?”
“No problem, sir.”
“What do you think?” Malcolm nodded in the direction of the interview room.
“He’s nervous as hell about something.”
Malcolm returned to the interview room and took a seat opposite Christin.
“So, Mr Christin. Constable Harris said you had some information about the case at Cley-next-the-Sea?”
“Yes, I do. In fact, I remember you. You were there?”
“I was, yes. That’s why Harris asked me to come and speak to you.”
“Ah, okay.” Christin put the laptop on the coffee table between them. “I got an e-mail off someone who only called himself R. It said to watch the attachment to find out about the man found off of Cley. The video’s on there,” he said, pointing at the laptop, “and it’s disgusting. I didn’t watch all of it, mind. Only the first minute or so. When I realised what was going on, well, I…”
“If it’s what I think it is,” Malcolm replied as Harris opened the door to bring their drinks in, “then I’m sorry you had to see any of it.”
“Am I in trouble?” Christin asked. He had a gold chain around his neck and had pulled a small crucifix on the end out of his shirt so he could run it between his fingers. Malcolm looked at him, realising that the reason he was so nervous was because he was sitting in a police station with child pornography on his computer.
“Did you copy the clip?”
“I downloaded a copy of it if that’s what you mean? So I could watch it. I only watched a bit and then turned it off.”
“If you didn’t actually make any other copies, then in that case, you’ve got nothing to worry about.” The look of relief on the journalist’s face was palpable.
“Oh, thank the Lord,” Christin said. “I didn’t know what to do, see? I thought, well, I don’t know what I thought.”
Malcolm smiled at him to reassure the man.
“Well, you don’t need to be concerned in the slightest. You’ve done exactly the right thing by bringing it here. We are going to have to take your laptop, though.”
“Oh, I’m not bothered about that. It’s the newspaper’s anyway.”
“Could I perhaps ask you something, Mr Christin?”
“You don’t want us to publish anything about that?” The journalist nodded at the laptop.
“That’s right,” Malcolm replied. “It is still an active investigation.”
“I’ve not even told my boss about it.” Christin stared at the computer as though it was possessed. “I want no part of any of that sort of thing. I won’t even report on things like that. They’re very good, the paper, about respecting my faith.”
Bloody hell, Malcolm thought. He didn’t think he’d ever met a journalist like Christin before.
“Okay, no problem. I’ll just get Harris to do the paperwork, and we’ll take it off your hands. I can speak to your editor, if you want? Tell him how helpful you’ve been?”
“I doubt she’d care, to be honest,” Christin replied. Malcolm winced slightly at his incorrect assumption about Christin’s boss’s gender. “She’ll only try to persuade you to give her first dibs on the story when it does get out.”
“Well, just let me know if there’s anything I can do.”
“Are you a believer, Detective Superintendent?” Malcolm paused before answering. He wasn’t—far from it—but at the same time, he didn’t want to offend the man.
“I’m afraid not,” he said. “This job doesn’t make that kind of thing very easy.”
“I think you probably need God in your life more than anything else,” Christin replied. For a moment, Malcolm thought the man was about to reach into his pocket and give him a tract on sin or something like that. He didn’t, but just pointed at the laptop. “Because what’s on that laptop truly is the work of the devil.”
60
Laura picked up the carrier bag from the floor of her Mini, mindful of the fact that it had bottles in it. On the way over to Annette’s house, she had stopped at a corner shop just around the corner intending on picking up a couple of bottles of wine. The small shop had a 3 for 2 offer on Pinot Grigio. Rude not to, Laura had thought as she picked them up off the shelf.
By the time she reached Annette’s front door, it was already open and Annette was standing just inside.
“Hey, you,” Annette said, glancing down at the carrier bag. “Has that got what I think it’s got in it?” Laura lifted the bag and grinned.
“Wine, and plenty of it,” she replied. “I threw some takeaway menus in there as well just in case you don’t have any.”
“Great stuff, come on in.”
Laura walked into the house and through the hallway to the kitchen.
“I’ll shove them in the fridge, will I?”
“Yeah, that’d be good. There’s some in there already chilled, and the glasses are in the cupboard above the fridge.”
Laura opened the fridge and laughed when she saw three bottles of wine in there already. They were identical to the ones she had brought.
“You saw the same offer, then?” Laura asked as she rearranged the bottles, putting hers at the back of the fridge. Annette just laughed in reply.
“Anyway, to cut a long story short,” Annette said, even though it had been far from a short version, “that’s how I ended up getting married to the pillock.”
“I don’t think I’ve heard anyone use the term pillock since I was at school,” Laura replied with a chuckle. “I think one of the teachers might have actually used the term in one of my reports.”
“My God, they wouldn’t dare to do that now,” Annette said. “My lot would be up in arms about it.”
“I’d forgotten you worked for children’s services. How much longer do you think you’ll take off?”
“I’m not sure. I spoke to my boss the other day, and he just said to come back when I’m ready. I might go on holiday somewhere.”
“Where are you thinking?”
“Somewhere hot and sandy. Maybe Greece, like Shirley Valentine?”
The two women started laughing, and Laura got to her feet to grab another bottle of wine.
“We should see if that’s on Netflix,” she called through from the kitchen. “I’ve not seen that in years.” As she walked back to the lounge, Laura picked up the menus she’d brought with her. “What do you fancy? I’ve got menus for pizza, Indian, or Chinese. Or if you want something more exotic, we could go on the net and see who delivers?”
“Pizza’s fine by me,” Annette said. “Not really a fan of all that foreign stuff, to be honest. But if you want to get something else, I don’t mind.”
“Pizza’s just as foreign, isn’t it?” Laura replied. “It’s Italian.”
“Yeah, I guess so.” Annette frowned before continuing. “Isn’t it from that place with the wonky tower?” A few seconds later, both women were laughing so hard that Laura managed to spill wine on the carpet instead of into Annette’s glass.