Green For Danger - Volume II of the Operation Jigsaw Trilogy

by Hayden, Mark

  ‘Ach, that was just a nickname.,’ said Pat. ‘He was the shortest terrorist I’ve ever met, so the boys in the Maze called him Big Ben because he was little and had a round face like a clock. We didn’t do names in those days, just word of mouth.’

  There was a timid knock at the door. James opened it a crack. One of the bible study girls was waiting outside. ‘Sorry to interrupt,’ she said, ‘but you’re James King, aren’t you?’ James nodded. ‘I just wondered if you could get me Queen Victoria’s autograph? I’m like a massive fan of hers.’

  Patrick was desperate to get out of that room and think. He went up to the door and pulled it open a little. ‘I’m sure your mother’s waiting outside, isn’t she?’

  ‘Oh, hello Mr Lynch. Yes, she is.’

  ‘If she were to do the Christian thing and offer Mr King a lift home, I’m sure he can arrange the autograph for you.’

  ‘I don’t think we’re finished,’ said James.

  ‘I think we are for today. I’ve got an appointment tomorrow morning, but we can continue the meeting in the afternoon if I’m free. I’ll get my daughter to give you a call.’

  Patrick edged into James’s personal space and gave him a smile. James backed off, then walked towards the front doors of the church without looking once at the altar. The girl scampered after him.

  There was nothing he could say to Parkes that wouldn’t make him want to smash the eejit’s face in, so he waited until James had got into his lift and then hooked his thumb towards the doors. Parkes opened his mouth to say something but changed his mind and left.

  Patrick walked towards the altar and knelt down. He didn’t want to pray, but he did want a moment to think. Parkes hadn’t made it up, of this he was certain. Through some horrible coincidence – or divine intervention – his nephew had set up a business with the man who had avenged his father’s death, and then Rob King had gone looking for vengeance of his own. Now there was James.

  The older brother may have had his brushes with the law, but he wasn’t a villain like Robbie. Sure, he could intimidate a useless lump like Parkes, but James King wouldn’t be heading up the M6 with a shotgun in the boot to start shooting. More like to get himself shot and end up in the back of a van and probably next to Patrick himself. What a mess.

  The priest came out of his office, and Patrick got wearily to his feet and crossed himself.

  ‘Thank you, Father,’ he said, and passed a twenty pound note to the priest. ‘I’ll let you choose which box to put it in.’

  He left the church and stood on the kerb for a moment. Out of divilment he waved at the satellite TV van that had tracked him down, then headed up the hill to face the music.

  Chapter 9

  Earlsbury

  Monday

  25 October

  Everyone stared at him. It’s not unusual for police officers to arrive at work with obvious injuries, but Tom’s shiner was a standout attraction. When he picked Hayes up in Dudley, she had taken one look at him and, instead of sympathy, she had said, ‘Can you see out of that eye to drive properly?’

  On the way to BCSS, he told her what he’d decided last night: they would pursue the golfing angle for a day or two while he finished work on Griffin’s finances, by which time, hopefully, DC Hooper would be sufficiently recovered for an interview under caution.

  They got as far as the Major Incident Room without Tom having to answer anyone’s questions about his eye, but he was stopped at the door by ACC Khan. ‘I got your email, Tom. That’s great work. Let’s have a chat about this.’

  ‘I’ll start on the phones,’ said Hayes, and Tom was led away to a small meeting room. The fifth man from Saturday morning’s briefing was already there.

  ‘Tom, I don’t think you’ve met Niall Brewer, our Media Relations Manager. This is DI Morton from CIPPS.’

  They shook hands, and Khan took a seat on the other side of the table next to Brewer.

  ‘Congratulations, Tom, that was excellent work. We didn’t actually expect you to track down who was paying off Griffin.’

  ‘One of them,’ said Tom. ‘Kelly said he was paying five hundred a month to Griffin. I’ll assume he was understating it – say, seven hundred and fifty – but that still doesn’t explain some of the things I’m seeing in Griffin’s financials. It’s a start, but he was getting a lot more than that from somewhere.’

  Khan nodded his head as if expecting the answer. Tom had obviously passed some sort of test. ‘Kelly is going to be released on bail this morning. Do you think the Major Enquiry Team should interview him about last Wednesday night’s events?’

  ‘No. I don’t think he had anything to do with it. I would have alerted DCS Winters if I thought there was a link.’

  ‘Of course. Niall? Any comments?’

  The media relations manager was Scottish and had the sort of smooth voice you’d expect from someone used to the cameras and microphones. ‘I think that achieves the Chief’s objectives nicely. We can show an early arrest which identifies Griffin as a bad apple, and we can demonstrate that the Chief hasn’t swept anything under the carpet. Nicely done, Tom.’

  ‘But this is only the start,’ said Tom. ‘I need to follow up a number of lines of enquiry, and DC Hayes is following one as we speak.’

  Khan gave him an encouraging smile. ‘That’s great, that’s really great, but we have to think about resources. Because the Chief invited CIPPS on to this enquiry, he’s paying for your services. And for DC Hayes. He’s even paying your bill at Earlsbury Park. So we have to think about whether your time is a good use of resources. Once you’ve written up Kelly’s arrest, you can wrap things up here and finish your report into his financials when you get back to London.’

  Brewer was nodding along to this and giving Khan his earnest unspoken support. It stank.

  ‘There are two lines of enquiry that I can’t pursue from London that I really think deserve to be followed through. Or at least one of them should.’

  Brewer drew back away from him. Khan frowned and took the bait. ‘What are they?’

  ‘First of all, how’s Ian Hooper?’

  ‘Conscious, but only just. We can’t speak to him until this evening, and then only if he continues to make progress during the day.’

  ‘That’s one line. I can’t categorically confirm or deny his involvement with Griffin until I can interview him under caution. The Chief wanted to know if the corruption was widespread. I don’t think that Hooper was bent but I’d rather clear him than leave a nasty smell hanging about.’

  Brewer looked alarmed at this prospect and started to interrupt until Khan raised an imperious hand. ‘Carry on, Inspector.’

  Tom turned his attention to Brewer. ‘I’m sure you’ll appreciate this, Niall, that it’s better to have a fully exonerated hero than a press release from CIPPS pointing the finger at him and saying there was “insufficient evidence”.’

  The media man shuffled in his seat, but kept his mouth shut.

  ‘What was the other thing?’ said Khan.

  ‘It’s a choice, really. I could carry on with the lines of enquiry that Hayes and I are pursuing, or I could revisit the officers who searched Griffin’s house on Thursday morning.’

  ‘What on earth for?’

  ‘I’ve clear evidence that they walked off with two Rolex watches. I could get warrants for all their houses and get the Tactical Support Group to carry out some dawn raids.’

  Khan pressed his lips together. ‘Is that true? About the watches?’

  ‘I don’t lie to senior officers, sir.’

  ‘Very well, you can have the rest of the week. It was budgeted for anyway. Keep me posted about all the lines of enquiry and don’t speak to any police officer except the Earlsbury CID or the MIT without my permission.’

  Tom pointed to his black eye. ‘I’ve already spoken to DCI Storey.’ Brewer looked like he was going to explode or have a fit of the vapours when he realised that two officers had been fighting.

  ‘That’s al
l, thank you Tom,’ said Khan.

  ‘One more thing, sir, is that I can’t continue until I know why Hussein called my DC “The Squealer”. If someone else does it, Hayes might give them more than a black eye.’

  Khan put his hand on Brewer’s arm and pushed down hard. ‘I’ll get you a coffee, Niall. Shall we go to the canteen, Tom?’

  They went two paces down the corridor, and Khan checked in both directions before leaning into Tom and saying, ‘I’m surprised you haven’t asked that question to her: you must be scared. It’s very simple. Something happened at her first CID posting. She interrupted her colleagues having a private party in a pub and instead of bringing it up with a senior officer, she reported it externally. Two officers retired early, one resigned and two had to be disciplined. She was put on garden leave, but she said she wanted to come back to work. I gave her to you so she’d realise something. I hoped she’d realise that her only hope of a career in the police is to join the Gestapo.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. That’s good to know.’

  Hidden away in corner of the MIR, Hayes looked content. She had notebooks, phonebooks, and the remains of breakfast spread around her, and she was busy talking to someone on the phone. Tom didn’t want to ruin the mood so he tried to forget what Khan had just told him in the corridor.

  ‘What have you got, Kris?’

  ‘Nothing, but in a good way. I’ve tried every golf course within driving distance of Earlsbury and none of them have a record of a Mr Griffin that matches our late DS. He’s not a member, and they all have computerised systems for guests, so if he’s been playing golf, he must have been doing it under a false name.’

  ‘That was quick. Good work.’

  ‘And I’ve checked and double checked all the HOLMES 2 entries; none of them have thrown up a connection.’

  That was less good. Although Hayes had acted entirely within the procedures for major investigations, Tom was uneasy about the connection between Griffin and golf being broadcast throughout the system.

  ‘What did ACC Khan want?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, something and nothing. After I finished with him, I went down to eavesdrop on the interview with Patrick Lynch. I think Winters is on to something there – he was Dermot’s uncle, and Dermot worked for him. It beggars belief that Lynch doesn’t have a clue what his nephew was up to. I watched them for half an hour, but they didn’t get anywhere. I think they’re going to leave him dangling for a while and try to dig up something from his financial records. That’s what I’d do anyway.’

  ‘What’s next then, sir?’

  ‘Can you remember what make of clubs he had?’

  ‘Sorry, no. Football’s my thing, not golf.’

  Well that answered one question about his DC. ‘Pity. I thought we might try to track down where he bought them. I’ll go and get the key to his house, and we’ll take a look this afternoon. Until then, I’m going to ring some banks, and you can dig into Griffin’s family. Often the money isn’t hidden very far away – a sister, a parent, a grandparent. Get as much information as you can on Griffin’s relatives so that we can start to widen the net further.’

  Hayes smiled and turned back to her computer. It was a warning to him: she had found a comfort zone where neither her reputation nor her gender and her race were a barrier to police work. He had done the same with the MLIU – although he was a middle class white boy, he now realised that he never had the authority as a copper that someone like Hooper carried as easily as he wore his utility belt. It was why Storey had dropped the nut on him.

  ‘Do you want a cuppa?’

  ‘If you’re going.’

  ‘I’ll hand in the Kelly paperwork first.’

  Tom called into the CPS liaison office and had a depressing talk with the case officer. He agreed with Kelly’s assessment of the situation – the confession was good, but without supporting evidence of the length and detail of Kelly’s relationship with Griffin, it was unlikely to lead to an immediate custodial sentence.

  Tom decided to call on the Exhibits Manager before going to the canteen. It would save time later.

  ‘Hi, I’m DI Morton. I wondered if I could have the key to DS Griffin’s house again?’

  ‘Ooh, that eye looks painful.’ Well, she was only saying what everyone else was thinking.

  ‘It was at the time, but it only hurts now when I touch it. I try not to.’

  ‘I won’t ask about the other bloke. I hope he’s in a worse state.’ Tom said nothing. ‘It was mad in here on Saturday, and I couldn’t come in yesterday so I haven’t caught up yet. You handed the key back on Saturday afternoon, didn’t you?’

  He nodded, and she picked up a cardboard box marked Logged Items for Return. ‘It’s in here,’ she said as she rummaged through the evidence bags. She paused and rummaged again. Then she looked into the box marked New Items and then she hunted around her desk. Finally she logged on to the computer and checked the index.

  ‘Sorry, sir, I can’t find it. Perhaps it’s gone back into store without being logged back in. Do you want it now or can you wait until later?’

  Tom had grown increasingly alarmed as her search turned up nothing; by the time she finished, he was tapping his foot. ‘Can you make a note of my request and the time, please.’

  She took immediate offence. ‘What for? I’m sure it’s in the Exhibits Store.’

  ‘Maybe. If it is, then you can throw the note away, but if it isn’t, I want a record of when it went missing.’

  He headed over to Hayes’s corner and picked up his coat. ‘C’mon, Kris, we need to get over to Griffin’s house before it’s too late.’

  ‘Whatever they were doing in that private party you interrupted must have been pretty awful,’ said Tom. He was driving as fast as he could towards Griffin’s house. He thought it would give Hayes a chance to respond without turning it into an issue.

  ‘You’ve heard. Who told you?’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Not really.’ She paused for a second. ‘The police station was next door to a pub where you could book the upstairs room for evening meetings and stuff. One of the guys had a big birthday. They got loaded and booked a stripper. Except it wasn’t a stripper, she was a working girl who was giving them all blowjobs. I was on duty that night, and one of the stupid idiots called the front desk on his mobile, and thought it would be funny to report a crime in progress so that it would be me who went round to the pub. They were all drunk, and they wanted me to see what a great band of brothers they were.’

  Ouch. That was tough. He hated to admit it, but the story had the complete ring of truth. All over the country there were groups of police officers who bonded together and who promoted loyalty to the group over loyalty to the Force as a whole – and from there it was often a short step to the sort of corruption that had taken over Griffin.

  Tom thought that Hayes had said enough, but she had something to add. ‘I would have left it alone, but I honestly thought the girl was under eighteen.’

  There was nothing that Tom could say, so he concentrated on driving.

  He knew what was happening at Griffin’s house. Someone, somewhere connected with the investigation didn’t want him to go through Griffin’s golf clubs. He only hoped that he wasn’t too late. There was no car in the drive and no sign of one nearby, but whoever it was wouldn’t have needed that long inside.

  ‘What are we going to do without a key?’ said Hayes.

  That was a good question. He had no idea so he ignored it. ‘Let’s glove up and get the camera out before we go any further.’

  Hayes gave a half smile and fetched the digital camera from the boot with a couple of evidence bags as well. Tom snapped on his gloves and went up to the front door. The key was in the lock.

  ‘Bugger me, Kris, look at this.’

  ‘I’d rather not, sir. Bugger you, that is. I thought you were above profanity.’

  Double ouch.

  Hayes examined the key from several angles and asked with
some irony, ‘Would you like me to photograph it?’

  ‘Of course I bloody would. Do you think I left it there?’

  ‘Sorry, sir. Yes, I did, actually. It was you who locked up.’

  ‘And I handed the key back in to the Exhibits Manager. Trouble is, I haven’t got a receipt for it – she wrote my name on the evidence bag, and I signed it, but whoever stole that key this morning has taken the bag, too. I wonder if they’ll try to convince her to “forget” that she saw me.’

  Hayes said nothing and got to work with the camera. When she’d finished, Tom opened the door and went straight through to the garage. The golf clubs were leaning against the wall next to the up-and-over door. He pulled the release handle and opened the door to let the light in.

  ‘Can you remember if they’ve been moved?’

  ‘Sorry. They were here, in this corner, but whether they were leaning in exactly that way, I don’t know.’

  ‘Fair enough. Right, Hayes, this is what we’re going to do. I’m going to strip that bag apart, and after every stage, you’re going to take a picture.’

  ‘Sir.’

  And that’s what he did. Club by club, pocket by pocket, he emptied the bag on to the drive, and Hayes took pictures while he jotted down details about each item removed. He was hoping for a used scorecard, matchbook, napkin or anything which would point to where Griffin had played his golf. There was enough rubbish in the pockets of the bag to show that items like that should be there. Someone had definitely beaten them to it.

  With all the items spread over the floor he looked at them again. It had taken them nearly an hour to do this. There must be something, somewhere.

  ‘I’ll put the kettle on. You come at it with fresh eyes.’

  He went inside and checked in the fridge – there was an unopened four pints of milk, still well within its date. He was making the tea when Hayes burst through from the hallway.

  ‘Sir, look. On the back of this presentation pack there’s a price sticker that says Earlsbury Park Pro Shop. Then I checked all the balls individually; ten out of the thirteen in his bag are stamped with the Earlsbury Park logo.’