Green For Danger - Volume II of the Operation Jigsaw Trilogy

by Hayden, Mark

  The boys from Blackpool should have been and gone by now, but he had heard nothing. There was a lot of money at stake here – Dermot had agreed a deal for two million pounds in counterfeit twenties, which meant collecting eight hundred thousand in exchange, all to be laundered in a hurry.

  Back home, Fran went into the kitchen to make them all some supper, and Elizabeth went to change out of her uniform. Patrick had difficulty swallowing the sandwiches, and he could feel his chest starting to tighten. When Lizzie went to bed, Fran took his hand.

  ‘Are you alright? Is something going on?’

  ‘It’s been a long day, love. Could you get me a tablet and some water?’

  As his wife went into the kitchen, Patrick’s phone rang, showing an unknown number.

  ‘There’s been a problem. The van will be in the Wrekin Road lock-up tomorrow morning. Deal with it properly.’

  Before he could ask any questions, the caller disconnected. Patrick tried calling Dermot’s number. It was switched off. The caller’s voice had been northern English, male and obviously under some strain. Fran was standing in the doorway with a glass in one hand and the other cupping a tablet.

  ‘I think I might need your help in the morning,’ said Patrick.

  Francesca had lain in bed and listened to her husband pacing around downstairs. At two o’clock she had made him take a mild sedative and lie down on the couch to avoid putting even more strain on his heart. Fran herself had only dropped off to sleep at about four.

  She put on the usual brave face in the morning. Last night’s rain had left the air feeling damp, and she had had terrible trouble with the straighteners. Then she had to face a bleary-eyed daughter who was in danger of missing the train and demanding a lift to Stourbridge.

  The deadline for the train was five past eight, and Elizabeth made it out of the door with thirty seconds to spare. Patrick had surfaced from the couch and gone upstairs to shower leaving Fran to catch her breath in the kitchen with a cup of coffee.

  Her husband went up in a rumpled suit but came down looking like he was dressed for gardening. She gave him a level stare.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘Dermot was on a job last night and I can’t get hold of him. Can you come with me to Wrekin Road?’

  ‘What’s on Wrekin Road, for goodness’ sake?’

  Fran knew that much of Patrick’s business was carried on in hiding, but Wrekin Road had never been mentioned before: it was a name she hadn’t heard since she was a girl, when her father worked there in a foundry. The road had been cut in half a long time ago by one of the motorways; the grimy, smoky building where her dad had spent two thirds of his life was pulled down overnight to be buried and forgotten.

  ‘I just need a lift there. You’ll still be in time for work.’

  ‘There’s no rush. I don’t have to be anywhere until ten o’clock, and it’s only Dudley. I want to see you eat something healthy first.’

  ‘Of course, love.’

  Fran made him a cup of tea, and Patrick ate his way mechanically through some muesli and yogurt. She made sure he had taken his morning medication, and went to get changed herself.

  Fran had failed her eleven-plus and anyway, her parents wanted her to go to the Catholic school in Earlsbury rather than the state grammar in Dudley. In those days, ‘careers’ were for girls who went to university; the likes of Francesca Whelan had a choice of office work or factory work, and after seeing what her father’s factory was like, she enrolled at the Tech for shorthand and typing.

  They did placements at the college, and Fran was introduced to a vast barn of a room full of women and typewriters: the typing pool. Was it any wonder, then, that when she visited the market one day, and Patrick Lynch asked her out for a drink, that she said Yes Please? She could see through his patter all right, she could see that he might be trouble one day (and he was), but he had a good heart and he loved all three of his daughters.

  Well, he loved all four of his daughters, of course, and Hope King was always going to be there in the background. Maybe it was the strain of being nice to so many women that had put him in hospital. Patrick’s real heart, the one in his chest, hadn’t been so steady.

  It was partly worry about his health and partly boredom that drove Fran back to work. Her older daughters had taught her a lot about computers, and she was ready for it. What she hadn’t realised was that the tech revolution had led to a shortage of skilled shorthand-takers. Digital recording machines were all very well, but nothing beat having a smart woman in the room who could get everything down and produce the transcript by the end of the day. Fran was in demand.

  She went downstairs to find that Patrick had moved his Jaguar off the drive and was in the garage, changing the number plates on her car. Her Ford Fiesta was the most common car on the road, and Patrick kept a series of false registrations in a drawer. Every time he needed to travel without leaving a trace on the vehicle cameras, he put on a different set of numbers. This was the first time that he’d made her go with him, though.

  He told her to pull into a lay-by before they hit the first camera.

  ‘Put your hair up and slip this on,’ he said. In his hand was a baseball cap.

  ‘You’re joking.’

  ‘I wish I was. Pull the peak down.’

  ‘If someone gets a good picture through the windscreen, they’ll be looking for a woman in a Jaeger suit and a Wolves cap. There aren’t many of them.’

  ‘You’re right. I’ve got this as well,’ he said, reaching into the back seat.

  Fran muttered at him under her breath but put on the padded training jacket he gave her. It made her feel like the Michelin man. Looking like that, she was more worried that one of her friends would see her, and she took every detour she could think of. When she crossed over the Smethwick Road, she could see several police cars heading north, and she lingered at the junction until they were long gone. In ten minutes they were turning into Wrekin Road and Patrick hadn’t said a word.

  Two hundred yards ahead, the road ended in concrete blocks and a motorway fence. There was a shabby building on the right, and Patrick told her to drive round the back.

  ‘Dad used to work in the foundry up there,’ she said, pointing to the motorway.

  ‘Dirty, horrible place,’ said Patrick.

  ‘It was, but he got a good living out of it.’

  ‘He got arthritis and tinnitus as well. Drop me by those doors and you get off home and change the number plates before you go to Dudley.’

  The front of the building had a disintegrating sign for Earlsbury Double Glazing, and around the back was a workshop with roller shutter doors. Glass was strewn over the small car park except for a section in front of the doors which had been swept clean. There were a lot of nooks and crannies like this in Earlsbury as businesses grew and moved on or faltered and died. If this recession ever ended, someone would put up a new building here and start all over again.

  Patrick got out and walked towards the doors and looked over his shoulder to make sure Fran had left. She started to drive round towards the front, but stopped, counted to ten and reversed back. When she came in sight of the doors, Patrick was looking at the back of a van inside the workshop. Boxes and some pallets full of cigarette cartons were stacked around it. Fran put the car in first gear and gave one last glance at her husband.

  He was staggering away from the open van doors. He turned towards her, clutching his chest then took a couple of steps before collapsing on to the floor.

  Fran killed the engine and dashed over to him. He was still breathing, but it came in short shallow gulps, and he was going into shock.

  ‘Pat, where’s your pills?’

  She shook his shoulder roughly. This wasn’t the first time she’d found him like this, and it was quite simple – if he took a nitro pill he’d be okay. If he didn’t, there probably wouldn’t be time for an ambulance. She felt his pocket and came up with an empty packet. He’d
put the wrong one into his old clothes. She knew there were none in her car so that left the warehouse or the van.

  Fran jogged towards the doorway as best she could in her heels, checking the ground for obstructions and not looking up until she was almost on top of the van. Her stomach punched up towards her throat, and she heaved – but held on to her breakfast – turning away from the van and trying to take deep breaths.

  Spread out in the back of the van were two bodies, one white and one black.

  She looked back at Patrick. There was no way that she was going to let him die now, the useless bastard. No way was she going to deal with that mess on her own. She slammed one of the van doors closed and worked along the side. There was a small area at the back with an empty workbench. Nothing. A door led through into the main building, and she stuck her head through into a storeroom with more crates. At the end she could see another door into an office – it was in there or in the van and she didn’t want to touch the van again.

  In the office, she started tossing jars and packets aside to look for medication. Tea, coffee, milk powder and sugar spilled over the floor and there, behind a Christmas biscuit tin was a curled up strip of tablets. She grabbed it and felt the blisters. One left.

  The effect on Patrick was almost instantaneous as the nitroglycerin dilated his arteries and allowed blood to flow round his lungs. His shoulders relaxed, and he started to breathe more easily. She stepped back from him and realised that she was panting and sweating worse than the man on the floor having an angina attack. She peeled off the padded coat and put it on top of him. Patrick started to cry.

  ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Patrick. What in God’s Name has happened?’

  He rolled on to his side and levered himself into a sitting position, clutching the coat around him.

  ‘It’s Dermot. The bastards have killed him. Oh my God, Fran, what am I going to do?’

  Fran couldn’t help but look back at the van. Dermot! Patrick had been so relaxed lately – business seemed to be going so well. Another realisation hit her.

  ‘Who’s the other one with him?’

  ‘Robbie King.’

  A shiver ran all the way down her spine, and she could feel cold sweat on the nape of her neck. Theresa King was a dirty slapper, but she didn’t deserve this. Even Dermot’s useless mother didn’t deserve this.

  ‘How do I get the doors down?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘How do I lower the shutters? We’re going home.’

  ‘I can’t. I can’t leave them there.’

  ‘Yes, you can. No one else is coming, are they?’

  ‘No, but…’

  ‘But nothing. I’m taking you home and going to work. We can deal with this later.’

  Patrick said nothing, and she waited. A small breeze found its way through her suit, and she could feel the blouse sticking to her back as it dried. She looked down and saw that there were stains on her skirt and a ladder in her tights. She would have to get changed as well. Patrick looked up at her.

  ‘There’s a box on the left hand wall, outside the doors,’ he said. ‘Press the red button and wait until the shutters are down then take the key out.’

  She lowered the shutters and blocked out the sight inside. Patrick had climbed to his feet, and she held his arm as he got in the car. His face was as grey as her suit.

  On the way home, she spotted two more police cars and she turned on the local news. The reporter said that a body had been discovered at the old Goods Yard, and that a man was critically injured in hospital. More killing? She looked across at Patrick. He had gone from grey to white.

  She gritted her teeth and helped him inside the house. Thank God the next door neighbours were away and the one across the road was at work. She rooted through Patrick’s medication and found a stronger sedative. He didn’t ask what it was as she gave him a glass of water to wash it down. He just lay on the couch and slipped into a deep sleep. Fran got changed and took the Jaguar to Dudley.

  The details on the morning news were sketchy – a shooting near Birmingham. Tom barely noticed it, and when his local news for London came on, it was all about Arnold Schwarzenegger’s visit. He went to work.

  There was a substantial fraud case on Tom’s desk which DI Fulton had given to him on Monday morning. Sitting next to the file were the final papers from Caroline’s solicitor. All he had to do was sign them and drop them through the firm’s letter box: two weeks later he would be divorced. She had tried one last time to get him to take on some of the negative equity in the Guildford property, but he had stood firm, especially when his father had heard about it. He blamed Diana for telling him.

  If he signed the papers, he would be consigning several years of his life to the box marked failure. His mother had tried to get him to see the positive side – Weren’t you happy with Carrie at first? Didn’t she change your life? Remember that, Tom, and forget the last year.

  He pushed the divorce papers aside and opened the fraud case. With one finger on the list of names, he started to transfer the information to a spreadsheet. This was the seed from which his investigation would grow – addresses, aliases, bank accounts, company records, wire transfers and land registry entries would all be painstakingly added as his team built up a picture of the suspects’ financial position.

  After an hour, he had entered the same name four times because he couldn’t concentrate. He looked from the screen to the divorce papers and back again. Did he really have anything to thank her for? He had been making a good name for himself in Edgbaston and was already on the ladder to a partnership at the firm of solicitors. Then Caroline had been retained as a junior barrister for one of his clients.

  Her boss was a well-known silk who had breezed up from London as if he were visiting the colonies. On the first day of the hearing, Tom and Caroline had been forced to smother their giggles when he described Birmingham as a Great Northern City that would benefit from his client’s inspiring designs for regeneration. Tom spent that night in her hotel room, and two weeks later she turned up at the office Christmas party.

  He still shivered at the memory of her coming towards him and leaning over the table. ‘Dance, Tom,’ she had said. Then she grabbed him by the tie and pulled him on to the dance floor while the senior partners stared at how short her skirt was. That night she had asked him what he wanted to get from being a lawyer.

  ‘To help people find justice. To be on their side,’ he replied.

  She wagged a finger at him. ‘Wrong job, Tom, wrong job. You should be a copper. The way you represented that shyster made it very clear that you didn’t believe a word he said. If you can’t fake it, get out before it’s too late. With your background, you’ll be in CID in no time.’

  And here he was at the Economic Crime Unit, putting numbers into a spreadsheet, about to be divorced and living in a hired box.

  By lunchtime, the Midlands shooting had become the death of one police officer, and the location had moved from ‘near Birmingham’ to ‘Earlsbury’. A second police officer was in a critical condition. There had been no arrests and Tom was taking a closer interest.

  He liked to get out of the office every day, at least once. Most of his colleagues ate in the canteen, but Tom liked to get out. The canteen food was okay, but there were so many options if you were willing to experiment. Within ten minutes’ walk of the station he could sample food from more countries than he had even heard of.

  Tom signed the divorce papers and put them in his overcoat pocket before heading out into the rain. Unless the sewers backed up, the City always smelled fresher when it was raining. He breathed deeply and cut through between two office blocks. He could drop the papers at Caroline’s solicitor and pick up something from Taste of Scandinavia to remind him of Ingrid. Carrie would call it wallowing, but he preferred to think of it as ironic counterpoint.

  The trees in the square beyond were losing their leaves, but people still sheltered under them, mostly smoking. Tom was about to give them a
wide berth when one of the group called out to him. He looked up to see a couple huddling together for shelter under the man’s umbrella. The woman had her hand around the man’s waist, inside his coat. It was Caroline and Nikolai.

  He marched up to them and fished out the papers. Before she could object, he stuffed them into her half open handbag. ‘That’ll save me a trip,’ he said.

  Nikolai had taken two steps back and turned round to light a cigarette, withdrawing the protection of his umbrella from Caroline. She tried to hand the papers back to him, but he stuffed his hands in his pockets.

  ‘Stop behaving like a spoilt child, Tom. These need to go to my solicitor, and you need a receipt.’

  She was right. Only an adolescent would do something like that but he was tired of being grown up. ‘Not my problem. If you lose them, It’s no skin off my nose.’

  ‘For God’s sake. Oh, all right, it’s on my way. Why you couldn’t have got your own lawyer to handle it, I have no idea.’

  ‘Because I am a lawyer. Why should I buy a dog when I can bark myself? And bite.’

  She laughed. ‘You can take the boy out of Yorkshire, but you can’t take Yorkshire out of the boy. You Mortons are all tight-fisted.’

  Is that how she saw him? A boy to be pushed aside when a man like Nikolai came along? She looked around the square and pointed to an anonymous glass building. ‘You’ll have to take a different short-cut if you want to stop bumping into me,’ she said. ‘Nikolai’s office is up there.’

  ‘I’ll make a note of that. In case my colleagues need to visit him.’

  ‘Grow up, Tom. You’ve got what you wanted. A clean break so you can get on with what you call a life – cooking dinners for your sister, taking your cousin out for dates, catching sweaty men who hide VAT money under the mattress. It obviously gives you a great deal of satisfaction.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘For reminding me why I became a copper. I’d almost forgotten.’