“Superintendent” Loader interjected. “My client has responded to your question fully and frankly. Please respect his answer. It will serve no useful purpose, either for you or for us, if you repeatedly put the same question to him and to receive the same answer.”
“Perhaps then you can be a little more specific, Mr. Bellini, about the ‘administrative and general duties’” Goodwin referred to the words that he had scribbled down into his notebook, “that Sergeant Windsor would ‘occasionally’ carry out for you?”
“Certainly. Miscellaneous little jobs. Running errands, delivering a parcel here and there. He’d clean things up, too, if there was a mess. I seem to remember he was rather good at that.” Once again Bellini smiled at the policeman, rightly suspecting that this would annoy him more than anything.
“And when was the last time you saw him?”
“Probably a couple of days ago, it’s hard to remember – I have so many businesses that require my attention. If Tommy was supposed to be with me full time, maybe he was playing you along as well as me. Perhaps he had his own little side line, his own personal agenda. What do you think?”
Goodwin didn’t like this. He had not expected Bellini to cough and hold his hands up. Of course he wouldn’t do that. But he wished that he had been able to conduct the interview on his own terms rather than this villain’s. It was clear that he had spent most of the afternoon rehearsing his statement with his brief.
“So you didn’t see him this morning? You weren’t at the Tower of London?” Goodwin knew that he wouldn’t have been. As far as he was aware, like most of the people outside the aegis of his immediate, close knit little circle, it was still Bellini’s standard operating procedure to have someone else attend to the dirty work.
“Of course I wasn’t. I don’t have time to visit tourist attractions. I’m a very busy man, Inspector.”
Goodwin didn’t rise to the insult. “So it was Doyle then? They’ve got security cameras at the Tower now. C.C.T.V. covering the place like a rash. Good quality ones as well, not the crap they put up in shopping precincts. Did you know that? My team are going over them now. With a fine tooth comb. They’ll pick him up, have no doubts about that.” Goodwin really hoped that this was true. He had been told that morning that most of the C.C.T.V. cameras were focused on the more valuable exhibits. There were only a few in the open areas and these made sweeps across some quite wide expanses.
“Francis Doyle? You don’t think that he’s involved, do you?” Had Goodwin not known him, Bellini’s mock surprise might have sounded almost genuine.
“Alright. Let’s talk about Doyle, then. He’s another of you ‘employees’, isn’t he? Does he do ‘general duties’for you, as well?”
“An employee? No, you’re wrong there, I’m sure he’s not. Feel free to check the P.A.Y.E. records of all my companies. I will admit to having one or two business dealings with Mr. Doyle in the past – only on a casual basis you understand – but to be frank, I’ve always been a bit put off by his reputation. I’m not sure that he’s always been exactly on the right side of the law. I get the impression that he’s not quite such as upstanding man as you or me, Mr. Goodwin.”
Bellini was taking the piss and Goodwin was in no mood to stand for it. “You’re ‘not sure’ thatmadFrankie Doyle is on the right side of the law. You should be bloody sure because you’re no more than a bloody gangster and Doyle’s your enforcer – the man you pay to scare people off, break their legs, kill them sometimes. Now stop pissing about with these stupid games. They’re beneath my intelligence and yours. Three people are dead, for God’s sake. Two of them were ours and I’m going to get the sick bastards who did it.” He was now at the edge of his seat, leaning over the table and staring Bellini straight in the eyes. He was as close as he could get with out standing up or getting on the table. Bellini didn’t move, he just stared back impassively.
“Superintendent Goodwin,” Loader reprimanded him harshly. He was surprised but pleased with this outburst although did his best to disguise it and sound shocked. Goodwin losing his cool made his job ten times easier and Bellini was holding up better than he had dared to expect. “Please do not make ridiculous accusations against my client. Ones that you clearly cannot substantiate. If you continue to harass him in this unprovoked and unwarranted manner, I will be forced to issue a summons today, against the Metropolitan Police Force and against you personally, for defamation of character. Furthermore, if you are not able to control your language and conduct this interview in a reasonable manner, a professional manner, with respect for my client, I will have no alternative but to terminate it immediately.”
Goodwin simply ignored him but when he spoke again the full vehemence of his anger had somewhat subsided and he was noticeably more calm. “So then, Doyle wasn’t with you this morning?”
“He most certainly was not.” Bellini tried to sound indignant at this scurrilous suggestion.
“What about last night?”
“Nor then either.” Bellini, in concocting his own new watertight alibi, had effectively abandoned Francis Doyle to the caprices of fortune. He had done so without a second thought, without even the vaguest pang of regret or emotion. If the police wanted a scapegoat, then let them have Frankie Doyle. If all went according to his plans, he, Bellini would take care of both trial and punishment on their behalf as well.
“And you don’t know of his whereabouts now, I suppose.”
“I’m afraid not. I rarely see Mr. Doyle as I explained before.”
“Not to worry, we’re confident that we’ll be bringing him in for questioning very shortly.” More over optimistic police bullshit thought Bellini. By now Doyle would be safely stashed away in Kilburn, in a house so safe that not even Sherlock Holmes could link it to Bellini. Goodwin went on, “Let’s turn to the events of last night. Or early this morning to be more accurate.”
“Yes, what a terrible business. I saw that on the news too. You’re not trying to link the two crimes, are you? That seems most unlikely to me. This is surely the work of a psychopath. Hannibal the Cannibal? That’s what you’re calling him, aren’t you? Hardly original but, well, what can we expect. The Met.’s not really renowned for its imagination, is it?”
This struck a nerve. “No. We most certainly are not calling himthat. Are you aware that Detective Inspector Ashworth was also investigating your links with organized crime?”
Linkswith organized crime? Bellini liked that. He had nolinkswith organized crime. Hewasorganized crime in a good part of the city and Goodwin knew it as well as he did. “I most certainly was not.” He deliberately echoed Goodwin’s words, turning them, as it were, back on him. “As far as I can recall I’ve never even met the woman. Although I wouldn’t have objected judging by her photograph on the television.”
Loader backed him up. “And I take it by virtue of the fact that my client has not even been questioned in connection with any alleged crimes, let alone charged with them, that D.I. Ashworth’s investigations concluded that my client was an honest man and that this continued harassment by the police can now be drawn belatedly to its proper conclusion.”
“Oh, no. D.I. Ashworth’s investigations were far from complete. And rest assured, they will be concluded by another officer. A senior officer.”
“I have every confidence that justice will be seen to be done” Bellini said self righteously but with a straight face that he struggled to prevent from being cracked by a hysterical giggle. It all seemed so ludicrous to him now.
“It’s too much of a co-incidence for me, you see. I don’t like co-incidences, never have. I don’t really believe in them. They always seem to smell just a bit too much and this one is starting to stink. Charlotte Ashworth – dead. Tommy Windsor – dead. On the same day. Ashworth heading up a long term investigation into your criminal activities. Windsor on her team, a key man, who’d infiltrated your organization. Too many co-incidences”, he repeated himself. “Something’s rotten and I know exactly what it is
.”
Loader jumped in. “Superintendent. This all smacks of a police conspiracy. Investigation and infiltration into perfectly legitimate businesses. It’s beyond the pail, it really is. I need to discuss this in detail with my client in order to decide what action it is appropriate for us to take against the police. I suggest that if you have no further questions, we conclude matters now. My client has been as helpful as he can be and yet, for some reason known only to yourself, you seem to be unwilling to accept his answers.”
“I wonder why?” Goodwin said with irony so thick that it seemed to have been laid on with a trowel.
Bellini wished, just for a moment that he could tell Goodwin about Tommy and his little sojourn to Ashworth’s house last night. That’d wipe the smug look off his face. But there was no way he would voluntarily become more involved than he already was and he understood that it’d take a more reliable witness than Frank Doyle to convince the police. Besides, they’d just close ranks to protect their own. That was their way. He had already come to the conclusion that Doyle had to be the fall guy and take the blame, posthumously of course, for all three murders. So be it, he thought. That was a price Bellini was more than prepared to pay.
“Just one more formality, Mr. Bellini.” Goodwin said. “If Mr. Loader doesn’t mind. I take it that your own movements between the hours of say eleven thirty last night and ten o’clock this morning can be accounted for.”
Bellini smiled yet again and Goodwin wanted to punch him in the face. Hard. Just once would do. That’s all it would take. “Yes, of course they can.”
“Of course they can” Goodwin echoed ironically.
“I spent the evening with a good friend of mine. I stayed the night. Didn’t leave until about half past ten this morning. Then I went to my club, the Mount of Venus.” Bellini made it sound like the Garrick or the Athenaeum.
“With a good friend. Let me guess – could it be Mr. Loader here?” Goodwin knew the form and was only too well aware of Loader’s long association with Bellini.
“Alas not, Superintendent. Whilst I count Mr. Bellini as a close friend as well as a client, I spent yesterday evening at home with my wife and was in my office by nine. I take it that I’m not required to provide an alibi.”
“We’ll see about that later.” Goodwin couldn’t quite bring himself to say no. “So who were you with?” he asked Bellini.
“Sir Charles Knight. He has a lovely little mews house in Belgravia. He’s the minister for trade and industry. You may know him.” He deliberately corrected himself. “Of him.”
Oh my God, thought Goodwin, now he’s even corrupted the bloody government. He felt like giving up then and there. He couldn’t imagine what sort of hold Bellini could have on a man of Sir Charles Knight’s profile and reputation but he knew that he was worried by it. Was nothing sacred anymore? “What were you doing there? Advising him on policy?”
“Yes, that’s right.” The concept was so similar to the one that Bellini had suggested to Knight himself that he wondered if his phone could be tapped. It wasn’t. In reality Bellini and Goodwin had a lot more in common than either of them would have wished, though they both would have been mortified by the suggestion.
But this was all that Goodwin could take. He hadn’t expected much from the interview and in the end he got rather more than he had bargained for. He could already imagine the nightmares that would surely follow. Things had been bad before the interview, but he now felt them to be much, much worse. They had now descended to a whole new, an even more deeper and darker, level of veniality. What did this monster have in mind. Was it to be Don Bellini for prime minister?. Or worse still, Bellini as the next Alastair Campbell? He felt that there was no useful purpose in continuing here. Not for the time being. He hoped that the search warrants which would by now have been executed would have turned something up. Anything. He badly wanted to see Bellini in custody even if it was just for the night. But he felt, in the pit of his gut, that it wouldn’t happen. It wasn’t that sort of day.
“Mr. Bellini, if you remember where we might find Frank Doyle, please let Sergeant Morris here know. No doubt we’ll need to see you again as our investigations progress. Thank you for your co-operation. Interview terminated at 4.27 p.m.” he spat into the microphone and switched off the tape. He labelled both tapes, from the twin cassette deck, with a single identification number and offered them both to Loader who selected one and stored it securely in his briefcase.
“If we can be of any further assistance, Superintendent.” He was a smarmy bastard that Loader, Goodwin thought. He wouldn’t mind seeing him locked up in the next cell to Bellini. In fact, in a strange way, he seemed almost worse than Bellini himself. He leeched off him, he was no more than a parasite. Loader, he thought, deserved to be crucified too, but Goodwin knew he was the type who always came up smelling of roses, no matter how deep the shit was around him. He was as bent as they come. It seemed that everyone who even came into contact with Bellini was, he was a man who had that effect on people. With this, his thoughts momentarily turned to Tommy but he soon banished them. He didn’t even want to consider that possibility. He should have looked at himself.
As Morris led Bellini and Loader out of the room and through the various security checks and procedures that led to the free world outside, Goodwin sat dejectedly alone in the interview room. They had won the battle, maybe. They were always going to win that one, they’d had enough time to set everything up properly, the bloody media had seen to that. But he’d win the war, he promised himself. Or in any event, he’d take them down with him.
In the semi illuminated dusk of the underground N.C.P. car park Bellini sat on the back seat of his Jag. and prepared his next fix of smack. Loader was shocked by how little visible effect the drug had on him and how quickly he had need of more. He wondered how much he was using. He tried to avert his eyes but found them drawn, almost unwillingly, to the spectacle. It was as if he were a motorist slowly passing an especially horrific car crash, desperate not to look for fear of invading the personal sanctity of the horror and grief of those involved, but having to sneak a look despite himself. He saw the pupils of Bellini’s eyes contract until they were now more than pinpricks. Was that normal, he wondered?
“That went well enough” he said as if to break their reverie. Bellini did not or for a moment could not reply, so Loader went on almostsotto voce, “That business with Knight was a stroke of genius. I think you upset dear old Goodwin a bit with that one. He can’t take all that excitement anymore. Not at his age. Did you see how red he went? I thought he was going to explode. You’ve never told me, old son, just what is it you’ve got on Knight?”
Bellini laughed. “It’s a secret – I promised him that I’d never tell. Besides, I don’t think that your stomach’s strong enough to take it.”
They both laughed and Bellini came around to the driver’s seat and they headed off, both well satisfied with their afternoon’s work, to see what sort of mess the police had made of the Mount of Venus.
* * *
Goodwin had been dreading the call but he knew he’d have to take it. It was now nearly 6.30, two hours since Bellini and his brief had danced away and the way things were going, it didn’t seem as if he would get home at all that night. For the last two hours he had been expecting Sir Charles Knight to return his telephone call from the House of Commons. He knew just what to expect but he had to go through the formalities. Whatever the outcome though, he had no intention of making it easy for Knight. Clearly Bellini had a hold over him. It must be something big or Knight would have been able to hush it up. He was not a man devoid of all influence. Far from it. But, whatever it was, the net result was the same. Sir Charles Knight was bent. Corrupt. And he was one of the men governing peoples lives. The men people put their trust in to serve them honourably and steadfastly. Goodwin was sickened by the very though of him betraying that trust.
“Chief Superintendent Goodwin, good evening. I understand that you wish to sp
eak with me.”
“Yes, that’s right, sir.” Goodwin struggled to be polite. “Thank you for calling me back.”
“I wonder if you could make it brief. The House is sitting tonight and I’m due to speak very shortly.”
“I’ll be as brief as I can. Can you please tell me your movements yesterday night and this morning.”
“Yes. I was at my home in Belgravia from about eight thirty last evening and remained there until around ten thirty this morning when I left for the House.”
It all seemed a little too much off pat, almost as though he was reading from a carefully prepared speech. “And where you alone, sir?”
“No, as a matter of fact I had an acquaintance with me. A Mr. Donald Bellini. I’m afraid we imbibed a good deal so I put him up for the night. He left at the same time as I did this morning.”
“And what time did he arrive?”
“It must have been around nine o’clock.”
“Are you certain of the times, sir? Could Mr. Bellini have left during the night, perhaps, and returned later?”
“I’m afraid not, Chief Superintendent. You see, my door is alarmed. Mr. Bellini would have needed the code to deactivate it and I’m quite sure that he doesn’t know it.”
“And the times, sir” he re-emphasized. “Are you absolutely sure of them? You see, we have been questioning Mr. Bellini in connection with three particularly brutal deaths. The murder of a young detective sergeant who had been operating undercover in Bellini’s organization and the murder and mutilation of the detective inspector who was heading up our investigation into his criminal activities and her husband. They were killed while their daughter watched.” Goodwin had always been prepared to be more than a little cavalier with facts when it suited his purpose. To him, facts were not set in stone, they were fluid and mutable, to be shaped and moulded as desired. “Perhaps your friend the Home Secretary has mentioned it to you?” His tone was harsher now, bitter almost.
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