“Did he have to steal any particular car or the first one he came to?”
“He was told which one he was to lift.”
“Why steal this car? What was so special about it?”
“This bloke wanted something that was in the car. That’s why that particular car.”
This meant Debbie Frost hadn’t been completely honest when she said there was nothing of any value in her car. She’d either had, or was holding onto, something this person wanted very much. This was becoming intriguing. Another talk with Ms Frost was now on the horizon.
“What happened afterwards?”
“Bloke comes over to look at what Louis stole. Seems he liked what he found in the car. He takes something and tells Louis to go dump the car somewhere. Louis does and, a few days later, he and Paulie are arrested. But, the thing is, he said he’d been told that, even if he gets nicked, he won’t go down for it. Bloke was sure about that. Louis gets slipped some money for his troubles.”
“Think carefully about this. Did Louis ever tell you what it was this police officer wanted?”
“Yeah. Something about a briefcase. Guy looks in it, takes something out and puts it back in the car and tells Louis to go dump the car.”
Nwojo had the haunted expression of someone who’d just been told his ride to the gallows was outside waiting. It was a look of almost frozen terror, as though he didn’t believe what he was actually being told or was telling me. But there was no stopping now.
“And that’s what Louis did?” I ventured, knowing this wasn’t what had gone down.
“Ah, not quite. Louis dumps the car alright but he keeps the bags that were there ’cause he thought he could make some bread from what was in them.”
“Did he say what this was?”
“No, not to me, man.”
“What did he do with these cases?”
“Dunno. He never said.”
I’d been a police officer long enough to recognise a lie when it appeared. Everything about Cyril Nwojo suggested an economy with the truth. For the moment I left it alone.
“What happened after that?”
“Didn’t say much. Something about phoning someone from a number he took from the handbag and that person threatening him, but not much else.”
“Did he say who this person was? Did he mention any names?”
“Not to me, he didn’t.”
“Is there anything else you can tell me about this?”
“Yeah. He was also uptight because someone had threatened to kill him so he wasn’t staying at his place, like, he crashed someplace else to get away.”
“Did he say anything about being shot at?”
“Yeah,” he perked up, as though this was the exciting bit. “Yeah, he says some dude appears from across the street and shoots at them, y’know, him and Paulie, but he didn’t get them. Paulie was shitting himself, man.” He laughed at the thought of what he’d said.
“Did he say if he thought the shooting was connected to the car theft?”
“No, I don’t think he connected the two things up. I think he just thought he’d pissed someone else off. Ain’t the first time someone’s tried to top him.”
“And you’ve not seen or heard from Louis Phipps since last Wednesday.”
“Nope, not a thing.”
“Where would he stay if he didn’t stay at his own place?”
“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “He didn’t stay here. That’s all I know. He just left and I ain’t seen him since. I think he still owes Simeon money and it don’t do to owe Sim.”
I sat back in the chair and thought for a moment. Was Cyril being honest with me or was he covering up for his friend?
“Think very carefully, Cyril; are you sure Louis Phipps didn’t say what he did with the two bags from the car?” I asked slowly and forcefully.
“Yeah, really, he didn’t tell me anything about that.”
Short of pinning him to the wall and slapping him around a little, I didn’t think I’d get any more out of Cyril Nwojo at this time. For the moment I was done.
“Is there anyone else Phipps might have talked to about this? Any other friends he’d let in on the secret?”
Cyril rattled off a few names and I wrote them down. Thanking him for his time I got up to leave and, whilst doing so, told him in no uncertain terms that, should he whisper anything about our little talk to another person, I’d make his life more miserable than it already was.
It was now 9.40. Back in the car I considered what Cyril Nwojo had told me. It was looking as though Louis Phipps had been telling the truth about what he’d found in the car. But what was intriguing me was learning that, according to Nwojo, Louis Phipps had been pressured into doing what he’d done by a police officer who wanted whatever was in the two bags. This had sinister undertones indeed and I wasn’t liking where this was heading. For the moment I decided to forget about the other names on the list and go ruin Debbie Frost’s evening for her.
I drove across Vauxhall Bridge, turned left and followed a bus along Grosvenor Road which fed into the Embankment. Turning into Oakley Street, I stopped just before the King’s Road and parked in an empty space. I crossed the road and walked up to the junction of Mulberry Walk. Her flat was on the second floor of number 9, which was the penultimate house in what was a short road. There were no lights on.
I dialled her landline number from my mobile but went straight to voicemail. I declined leaving a message. Did I want to risk waking her up?
Deciding not to bother, I’d just turned to walk back to my car when a taxi pulled up by the junction with The Vine and Mulberry Walk. I saw three people disembark. Two were males, one considerably bigger than the other. I shrewdly guessed that one of the two was the live-in boyfriend but I couldn’t see faces clearly in the dark. The other person was Debbie Frost. Under the street lighting I could see her shock of black hair cascading around her shoulders. The smaller of the two men paid the taxi driver and it pulled away. They went up the stairs to the front door and entered.
The taxi was waiting by the main King’s Road when I tapped on the window. I showed the driver my ID and he wound down the window.
“The people you’ve just dropped off back there, where’d you pick them up from?”
“Somewhere along Piccadilly, mate, don’t remember where exactly. ”
“Nearer which end, Marble Arch or the Circus?”
“Marble Arch end, probably just past Green Park Tube.” “Had they booked the ride in advance? ”
“No, they were on the pavement waving for a taxi as I passed them.”
“I don’t suppose you heard what they were talking about.” “No, sorry, wasn’t really listening to them.”
“Okay, thanks.” He wound up the window and turned left into the Kings Road.
I wasn’t sure what use this information was but it was better to know than not know. She now had company and I suspected would be unreceptive to a nocturnal visit. I was still considering my options when I saw a man turning from Mulberry Walk into The Vine and walk towards the King’s Road. He looked familiar but, across the road, in the dark, I couldn’t make out who it was. He was looking straight ahead. At the corner he turned to look right and I saw who it was. Richard Rhodes. He was the bigger of the two men who’d just got out of the taxi with Debbie Frost.
But how would he know her? I didn’t believe Debbie or her boyfriend were thinking of joining up to whatever armed conflict Rhodes would be engaging in once he’d finished making it safe for more Colombian cocaine to flood the streets of London, and it was a sure bet he wasn’t taking soundings about seeking a safe Tory seat. Which left me wondering whether he was anything to do with what had happened to the Phipps brothers.
F O U R
Thursday
I was looking at the file on Richard Rhodes. He was 34 and an ex-soldier who I already knew had left the army before his contract was officially up. This was because he’d beaten a staff sergeant half to death in a brawl in barracks at
Aldershot. To avoid a court martial he’d resigned his commission and walked away with a greatly reduced annuity. This was eight years back and, since then, he’d been a mercenary. It was listed that he’d seen service in several theatres of war where, officially, the UK had no ongoing military activity.
He was known to have seen service in Southern Africa, Chechnya, Lebanon and Afghanistan. His expertise included not just fighting battles against whoever he’d been hired to fight against, but also helping to train rookie soldiers, some not too many years on from suckling their mother’s milk, to use firearms and in principles of military combat. He was suspected of having been involved directly in combat activity, including one particularly gruesome encounter in Lebanon where a building complex had been attacked and mostly destroyed. It later emerged that many women and children had been taking refuge, and had perished when the building was fired upon. This had led to international condemnation but Rhodes had denied being directly involved in that attack though he didn’t deny being in the country assisting rebel forces.
He had one conviction. Just after leaving the army, he’d taken on a gang of skinheads outside a pub one evening and, despite being outnumbered eight to one, he’d put two in hospital with broken bones and multiple facial contusions, plus knocking one out stone cold, before the others ran away. Taking on eight yobs and winning. I shouldn’t have been impressed but couldn’t help it. He’d been fined only a token amount as the magistrates accepted his claim that he was the victim of an unprovoked assault.
And now he was working as a bodyguard to a Colombian bigwig, walking behind to make sure the man was able to ply his ignoble profession with minimum outside interference from anyone who had no business involving themselves with his.
I cross-referenced his name against Phil Gant and discovered that, as well as what was known about Lebanon, they’d also been in other areas of conflict simultaneously. Both had been in Afghanistan at the same time. Were they working together?
I checked his family line. He came from East London. His birth details revealed no mention of a father but his mother was alive and still living in the same area.
But I could find no link to Debbie Frost. I’d hoped his family line would somehow interlink with hers but it didn’t. Which left me wondering what circles she moved in that would bring her into contact with the likes of a mercenary killer like Richard Rhodes. Time to visit Ms Frost again.
I was told by Debbie Frost’s PA she was in a meeting with MPs and wouldn’t be available until around late morning. I said I’d call back and rang off without leaving a name. In the interim I still had some addresses of people who were listed as being friends of Louis Phipps. This involved another visit to the Brixton area. I parked on the main road and spent a fruitless hour either knocking on doors where nobody answered, or talking to people who claimed they barely knew Louis Phipps. From one person I discovered that Louis Phipps dealt in soft drugs and was unreliable as a person. This wasn’t exactly news to me. He claimed to know nothing about Phipps’ involvement in a recent car theft and said he’d not seen him for a couple of months. Frustrated, I went back to the office.
There was a message on my desk telling me to call someone named Rudolf. Who? Did I even know of any Rudolfs apart from Santa’s red-nosed reindeer? Then it dawned on me; this was Phipps’ supposed landlord.
I dialled the number given. The same vacuous female who’d been there,Twinky, answered and did not seem thrilled to hear my voice. I asked for Rudolf and she slouched off to get him. Rudolf came to the phone. I identified myself.
“Oh yeah, thanks for getting back. I just had a friend of Louis’s round here, that dude Simeon. He wanted to know where Louis was ’cause Louis owes him money. He wasn’t happy.”
“Okay, but why tell me?”
“He told me to tell Louis that, unless he pays him real quick, he’s not gonna get back what he left at Simeon’s place for safekeeping.”
He paused for a moment.
“Some dude came by and searched his room. I told you about him, didn’t I? Real heavy guy.”
“What was it Phipps left with Simeon?” I was definitely interested in this.
“Never said. Just said that, unless he gets his bread, Phipps ain’t getting his package back.”
I was beginning to think. Could Simeon be holding what it was I’d been looking for the past couple of days? Had Simeon been lying to me yesterday?
“What package is this?”
“I don’t know, but it appears that Phipps took some dope to sell and, ’cause he was skint, he left something with Simeon as security. And now Sim’s saying Louis ain’t getting it back unless Phipps squares things with him.”
“How much does Phipps owe?”
“Didn’t say but it’d probably be around five grand. That’s about the usual amount.”
I thought about this. At King’s, lecturers bought drinks for students but none peddled dope to them. I briefly wondered if the concept of in loco parentis applied to university students.
“Where’s Simeon now?”
“I’m guessing at college. He said that’s where he’d be if Phipps showed up with his money.”
“Whereabouts does he work?”
“Greenwich University. Psychology Department. He teaches there.”
“Don’t let on you’ve talked to me. I’m going to have a word with Mr Simeon. I do believe he wasn’t absolutely truthful with me when last we spoke.”
The Psychology Department was at Avery Hill, in Eltham. I raced there with the use of a police siren to facilitate the journey. I parked and entered the main office. There were students standing around the counter but I walked to the front of the queue. I was told that Mr Simeon Adaka had his offices in the building opposite but that he was likely to be teaching or in a tutorial with a student. I said I would wait and walked over to his block, having no intention of waiting for the likes of him.
I found Simeon’s office and entered. He was talking to a young black woman who had books and papers scattered across a nearby desk. He did not look pleased to see me again.
“Mr Adaka, good morning,” I said jauntily, “we need to talk.”
“Can’t you see I’m busy?” He sounded irritable.
“No, I can’t,” I stated flatly. “Let me make it very simple for you. Either we talk now or I’m going to arrest you on suspicion of.”
“Okay, okay, man.” He looked at the surprised woman. “Can we finish up in a little while? This won’t take too long.”
She gathered her books and papers into a pile and left them on the table. She left, scowling at me as she went out of the room, muttering under her breath.
He was dressed somewhat smarter than he’d been yesterday, with a smart but casual blue open-neck shirt and dark trousers. Compared to in his flat, at least he was dressed. He fixed me with what I assume he thought was an evil eye. My dog had looked at me more scarily when I’d not had a biscuit for her.
“Ladies’ man, eh, Sim? Can I call you that?”
“What you want now? If you’re still looking for Louis, I ain’t seen him since you came to my place yesterday.”
“Yes, I am, but that’s not why I’m here. A little bird tells me you’re holding something for him. Am I right?”
“Rudolf. You spoke to Rudolf. That’s how you and your partner found me, wasn’t it? He’s got a big mouth.” He shook his head.
“Can the threats, Simeon. I want to know what it is you’re holding for Louis Phipps as security for whatever drug deal went down.”
Simeon stared at me for a few moments. From his expression I wasn’t sure if he’d even heard what I’d said to him.
“Do the Governors at this place know about your sideline as a dealer? Your Faculty Head maybe? I wonder if they’d like to know?”
“Not a dealer, man. I just use a little and sell a bit.”
“You sell to students?”
He didn’t answer.
“As I thought. You’re a dealer. For the mome
nt, however, I’ve more important things to consider, and you can help with that.”
“Like what?”
“I’m told Phipps gave you something to hold on to. I want to know what it is.”
“It’s not that special, just a kind of padded A4 envelope with lots of papers and some photos.”
“You said yesterday Phipps was claiming that he’d come across something that would make him rich. Is this what he was talking about?”
“I don’t know. They just looked like newspaper cuttings and pictures of guys in uniforms.”
“Uniforms?”
“Yeah, guys in military uniforms.”
“You opened his package?” I enquired.
“No. He showed me a couple of them to convince me he had something of value for me to hold against the dope he took.”
“Did he say what was so special about these pictures?”
“Not to me. Just said something about them having lots of value to the owner, and that the person owning them wouldn’t want them out in the open.”
Was this the source of Phipps’ supposed blackmail? Could the person in any of those pictures be someone prominent in political life? This also raised the intriguing idea that Louis Phipps could even recognise someone prominent in political life. I doubted his newspaper reading extended much beyond topless women on page three.
“Were these what he took from that car he stole?”
“I’d guess so. Most other stuff he steals, he either fences or is more open about what it is.”
“You’re quite sure this material is what Phipps claimed was going to make him rich? He wasn’t just stringing you along?”
“No, man, he was hot on this one. I’d never seen him so worked up and excited as he was for this. Phipps is usually full of shit about how this or that scheme was gonna make him a pile of bread, but he was pumped about this. This is the big one, he kept saying. This is gonna do it for me. That’s what he said.”
Simeon looked as though he believed what he was saying.
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