Green For Danger - Volume II of the Operation Jigsaw Trilogy

by Hayden, Mark

  ‘Can I get you anything before we start?’

  ‘The WRVS trolley will come round soon. You can buy me a coffee.’

  ‘What’s the tea like?’

  ‘Better than Earlsbury nick.’

  Morton smiled. ‘That’s not saying much, is it? Well, I’m here in a completely informal capacity but I have to ask if you’ve spoken to your Fed Rep.’

  ‘He’s a tosser. Gives the Federation a bad name.’

  ‘I agree, but he’s right. You don’t have to talk to me today, and nothing you say is admissible. Fair enough?’ Ian nodded. ‘Tell me if I’ve got it wrong so far. You knew nothing about what was happening at the Goods Yard. DS Griffin was too drunk to drive, and he rang you up for a lift. You followed him in to see what was going on. How am I doing.’

  Ian wasn’t going to commit himself to anything unless he could help it. He chose to remain silent for now.

  ‘I’ll come back to what happened in a minute, but I have another question for you. Why did England lose to France and Ireland in the Six Nations this year?’

  What the hell was the man on about? Morton had said nothing about being a rugby fan the last time they had met. Mind you, he hadn’t said much about anything. The inspector was waiting patiently, and Ian had the choice of talking or sending him packing. Why rugby? He shifted in the bed, and a knock on the door signalled the arrival of the tea trolley. Morton got the drinks in and settled back down. Ian left the coffee because it would be too hot to drink, and moving over would be painful. He’d wait until it cooled then finish it in one go.

  ‘Too cosy,’ he said to Morton. ‘Martin Johnson’s coaching team need shaking up because they’ve been together too long. They keep rotating the squad, but the coaching team aren’t afraid of losing their jobs. The lads played well in France, but otherwise, it’s too stale and predictable. That comes from the top.’

  ‘I agree. They should have lost to Wales as well. Tell me, Ian, why did you get shot?’

  Morton sipped his tea, and Ian lay back on the pillows. Was this guy some sort of psychologist? Griff had said he was a bean counter from the Fraud Squad, but Ian knew he’d been cornered. He’d answered the question about England because he thought it was meaningless, but now he could see that Morton was expecting some sort of analysis.

  Ian rolled carefully over and drank his coffee, even though it was too hot.

  ‘Because Griff was on the take. Because he was doing someone a favour and because he was out of his depth. Because he’d stopped being a copper. I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I didn’t follow procedure. Maybe it’s because I didn’t stay in the car like he asked me to.’

  ‘It’s a start,’ said Morton. ‘I think you’ve got some more reflecting to do yet if you want to come back on to the force, but it’s a good start. Have you given any thought to that – to whether you want to come back?’

  ‘Can I come back?’

  ‘Medically? I’ve no idea. Psychologically, you might find that you bottle it the first time there’s any confrontation. Or you might overcompensate and take too many risks. That doesn’t interest me. It’s the spiritual dimension I’m worried about.’

  ‘I’m not religious.’

  ‘I didn’t say you were. Even atheists have a spiritual dimension although some of them call it “morality”. Where’s your loyalty, Ian?’

  Morton crossed his legs, and Ian tried to remember what they called his question – that was it, rhetorical. Morton had asked him a rhetorical question.

  After a suitable pause, Morton continued. ‘Griffin was only loyal to himself. He was greedy and bent. You’re not like that. I’ve seen your relationship with Ceri, and I know you care about other people. But what about the police? You’re a good rugby player so you know all about loyalty to your team. What about loyalty to the game as a whole?’

  Ian stopped him. This was getting too hard. ‘How can you be loyal to a “game”? And what does it have to do with the police?’

  ‘You’re not stupid, Ian, so I’ll try not to patronise you. If your team fields an ineligible player or takes steroids, you’re letting the game as a whole down. Your team might benefit in the short term, but the game as a whole suffers. It’s a short step from doing that to bribing the referee. The same with the police. If you let loyalty to your team come first, the whole force is undermined. When you’ve decided where your loyalty lies, I’ll know you’re fit to be recommended for duty. I’ve already decided you weren’t involved in the counterfeiting.’

  That was news. So Griff had been up to it all along.

  ‘Describe the man who shot you again.’

  Ian drew a breath. ‘He was quite tall, he …’

  ‘Bollocks. He was short, bald and Irish.’

  Ian could feel himself flushing, and the pain in his side throbbed. ‘If you want to get rude, perhaps you should go. I’ve told all this to Winters and I don’t recognise the man you’re describing. He showed me a picture and I’ve never seen it before.’

  ‘Cut the crap, Ian. We’re going to catch him. You can go to jail with him or help us. It’s up to you.’

  ‘Are you married, sir?’

  ‘Divorced. No children.’

  ‘Sister? Parents?’

  Morton didn’t say he was an orphan so Ian assumed the man had both. ‘And there’s no secret tape recorder?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Would you swear to that on your sister’s life? Would you swear on her life if you knew that I’d kill her?’

  Morton uncrossed his legs but didn’t reply. Ian had to lie right back down and tried to move away from the pain, but it followed him across the bed. Morton cleared his throat.

  ‘Are you telling me that Adaire threatened you?’

  ‘Is that his name? Adaire?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He knew which school Ceri teaches at.’

  ‘Dermot must have told him. He saved your life, you know. Twice.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘He must have talked Adaire out of killing you, and then he rang for an ambulance. Maybe that was what got him killed.’ Morton put the empty paper cups in the bin. ‘I’ll leave you alone if you describe to me – honestly – anyone else you saw.’

  Ian weighed it up. Morton could ruin his life, but this Adaire bloke could kill him or worse still, he could kill Ceri and leave him alive. On the other hand, they were already on to Adaire so it wouldn’t hurt to co-operate a bit.

  ‘There really was a thin bloke there. He ran away when the shooting started, and I tried to arrest him, but I didn’t have any handcuffs. He had a bit of a beard and a Lancashire accent. Blue eyes, I think.’

  ‘Hair colour?’

  ‘He was wearing a Man United hat. Typical United fans – out thieving instead of watching the match on TV.’

  Morton seemed both pleased and troubled by this information. He looked at the window for a second then picked up his coat. ‘Thanks, Ian. I’ll leave you to think about what you want from life when you get better. I’m sorry it’s going to be a long time.’

  That was a very good question. What did he want from life?

  The plan was to change hotels for one night. Kate and her boss checked out of the moderately luxurious one in town and checked into a budget place at the airport. She was beginning to see that the quality of the decoration had little to do with price in Hong Kong: the fixtures and fittings weren’t any shabbier than the other place but it was a lot smaller: in Hong Kong, wealth was measured in space more than in possessions. She had been studying the London property market a little as she debated whether to settle there permanently, and she had discovered that it was booming so quickly that she wouldn’t be able to afford to live there unless jobs like this one came along very regularly. She wondered whether, during her lifetime, London would become as cramped and crowded as Hong Kong. Probably.

  A taxi took their luggage away in the morning, and it was returned to them that afternoon with fulsome apologies for the delay. Her boss see
med reluctant to let her take it to her room.

  ‘It’ll look really suspicious if we check it in to reception,’ she said. ‘Besides, do you want someone else looking through it?’

  He flannelled for a bit and let her go. She heaved the enormously heavy case on the bed and, shuffling around the narrow gap between the bed and the cupboard, she unzipped it. Underneath her clothes was the equipment for the Shanghai job.

  It was broken down into components which were capable of assembly into a variety of legitimate configurations and which were quite appropriate for her cover story; they had been added while the cases were en route to the hotel. She felt underneath and came up against something hard.

  Carefully taking out the intercept equipment, she lifted the final layer of clothes. At the bottom of the case were three 18v lithium ion batteries. What were they doing in there? They didn’t need them and they hadn’t ordered them.

  Kate sat on the bed and stared at the grey aluminium cases. Something didn’t add up. Someone had buried them at the bottom of the case, so it wasn’t an accident or oversight. Leach had been reluctant to allow her access to her luggage, which could be a coincidence (he seemed to have an issue with women showing initiative), or it could be that he wanted them for his own purposes. In which case, why weren’t they in his luggage? She couldn’t trust the man, that was for certain.

  She had the note in her pocket still. When the waiter had invited her to his place the other night, she wasn’t so drunk that she had accepted. Instead, she had written on the back You get the taxi to my hotel. Bigger bed. She had been awoken at one thirty in the morning by the receptionist. ‘Miss Lonsdale, there’s a man here called Li Wei who says he has a note from you.’

  When Wei arrived at her room, he handed over the note like a private handing over a holiday pass. If he really was the sweet, kind young man he seemed to be then she could be signing his death warrant by getting him involved in her problems. She had no commanding officer any more, no chain of command that would back her in any situation. She was on her own.

  Tom walked out of the hospital after his visit to Ian as if he were in his own world, which basically he was. He now had confirmation from Hooper that the red beanie hat had been at the Goods Yard. Thanks to a favour from London, he had a name, too. Tom had only handed in one hair for DNA testing because he couldn’t enter the whole hat as evidence without alarm bells ringing everywhere.

  The report included the subject’s criminal record – GBH, ABH etc. Exactly what he would have expected. Unfortunately, the name had not appeared in Lancashire & Westmorland’s report on Adaire. Their links must be well hidden. So now what did he do?

  He drove back to BCSS and checked his desk. There was an A4 envelope with a handwritten direction and no stamp, which he assumed would be an internal report. He opened it without thinking, and inside was another envelope addressed to him and marked Personal. There was also the copy of a printout from the hotel where he had sent Hayes on Monday.

  She had never returned to BCSS. He had received an email from ACC Khan on Tuesday which said: I understand you are in London. DC Hayes has phoned in sick. Please let DCS Winters know if you need further support from MCPS.

  Tom opened the letter and scanned the signature. Hayes’ handwriting started neatly, but by the end of the letter, it was looking distinctly out of breath.

  Dear DI Morton,

  I don’t think I am well enough to continue working with the Midland Counties Police Service and I will be talking to Human Resources about this. My doctor has signed me off for a week to start with.

  However, I could not go without telling you about what I had discovered at the hotel.

  Their switchboard records details of outgoing calls and I was able to track back and find the extension from where the call was made to DS Griffin. It was a hotel phone in the lobby outside the Lickey Hills Suite. No one else had access to that area because the key was given to the person who booked it. I have attached a printout from the reservation system.

  I have learnt a lot from working with you and I hope that you make an arrest soon.

  Yours sincerely,

  DC Hayes.

  His first response was coward. She was entitled to her opinion about his methods, but she wasn’t entitled to speak to him like she had done at the park. If she didn’t like the way the police force did its job, she could resign or she could suck it up and apologise to him. To go on the sick like that was taking the easy way out, and she hadn’t seemed like that to him. Maybe she had spoken to someone who told her there was a case for constructive dismissal. He liked her and he was sorry to lose her, but that’s life. His opinion changed when he looked at the printout.

  This hotel had a number of conference rooms and facilities. The report contained the record of bookings for the Wednesday that Griffin was shot. The Lickey Hills Suite had been booked out for the whole day to MCPS, and the booking had been made by the Chief Constable’s Personal Assistant. No wonder Hayes had run off: he felt like doing the same.

  He breathed slowly for a few seconds to calm his nerves and tried to think straight. Tom didn’t suspect the Chief Constable because the man had been in post for only a short period. This went back years. That didn’t mean his PA was innocent though – and the first question he needed to answer was the nature of the meeting and who had attended.

  He was wondering how much of a gamble to take when Winters shouted from his office. There was no one else around – it was already dark outside. Tom shuffled the letter and printout together and put them in his jacket pocket.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘I’ve just had word from the hospital that a certain Thomas Morton paid a visit to Ian Hooper. That wouldn’t be your father, would it?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘When were you planning to tell me?’

  ‘It’s late. I was going to write up the report at the hotel and present it to you first thing tomorrow before I head back to London.’

  ‘Tell me now and email the report when you’ve finished it.’

  ‘One second.’ Tom fetched his notebook, and was grudgingly invited to sit on his return.

  ‘It’s a difficult one,’ he said. ‘Hooper’s memory is returning slowly, and I believe that he might recall further details of the night in question, but that’s not my prime concern in his case.’

  ‘It isn’t. Anything he remembers should be told to me.’

  ‘Understood. At this moment, based on lack of any evidence to the contrary, and supported by statements from Ian’s girlfriend and from Mr Kelly, I believe that Hooper did not know what was happening before or during his visit to the Goods Yard. I believe that he was induced to go there by DS Griffin, and that Hooper was an innocent victim on that night.’

  ‘I can sense a “but” coming.’

  ‘It’s more of a “however”. If the Chief Constable wants to be sure that Hooper is innocent, I need to know why Griffin chose him. Not just why he rang Hooper that night, but why he chose him for CID. We’re all loyal to our bosses.’ Winters snorted at this suggestion. ‘Well, we are. Up to a point. For some officers, the loyalty stops at a very low level – when the boss is a woman, for example, some men have very little loyalty.’

  ‘Sad, but true.’

  ‘Yet, for other officers and other bosses, the loyalty goes all the way – in Hooper’s case, his loyalty took him to the edge of death. I want to know whether that was based on naivety or something else, something that the Chief would not want back on the force.’

  ‘How long will it take to decide that?’

  ‘Until I can interview him under caution, I won’t know for sure. And that will take weeks. On the other hand, I can clear the rest of Earlsbury CID immediately and will do so in my report. Clean bill of health, end of pariah status. If anyone else in that team was bent, he or she would have been in the car with Griffin instead of Hooper.’

  ‘Good. That’s good to hear, Tom.’

  ‘There is another “but”, I’m a
fraid. I will be recommending that after DCI Storey has passed on the good news to his team, he is given additional leave. Three weeks. That man is on the edge of a nervous breakdown.’ Tom pointed to his black eye. ‘And if he won’t go away voluntarily, he should be forced to go. For his own good, and that of the team.’

  Winters grunted an acknowledgement. ‘The other ACC won’t like it. That team will be three officers short if we do that, but you’re right. Thanks. You can go home and save the taxpayer another night in the hotel.’

  ‘I’ll be in touch.’

  Tom cleared everything from his desk. He wouldn’t be coming back to BCSS for a while although he had no idea what he was going to do. He hung on to his security pass, just in case, and headed out to the car park.

  He loaded up the boot and climbed in with some difficulty. He must have knocked the courtesy light into the off position.

  ‘Good evening Inspector,’ said a voice from the back of the car. ‘Don’t turn round.’

  So, what are these batteries? thought Kate. An actual bomb or something else? She stood up and retreated from the suitcase. That was completely pointless because if they were a bomb, six feet would make no difference.

  She needed to get well away from here.

  She stuffed some outdoor clothes into a small rucksack and took her passport and all the cash, but left her cards, phone and laptop behind. She hopped from one foot to the other, staring at the fake batteries. They were the only proof that something had gone wrong, but if she took one with her, she might be carrying a bomb around. In the end, she stuffed one into her rucksack and headed down to the bar. Her boss was talking to an obvious hooker.

  Kate put her rucksack down out of sight and caught Leach’s eye. She made sleeping signs with her hands next to her head. He nodded back, and the hooker half turned round to see what he was looking at. Kate retrieved her rucksack and was out of the hotel in seconds. She hoped the prostitute turned out to be a man. Unless of course that’s what her boss wanted. In which case, she hoped it was a woman.